Two different views of Melbourne

Monstrous Melbourne presents Melbourne as the city that just keeps growing, and Melbourne dreamtime a reality looks back to the people, flora and fauna that was there before white settlers.
Melbourne seems both utterly familiar and completely strange to me now. It’s ‘home’ and yet it’s also a city I’d have to get to know again. I could live here again, but it would be an adjustment.
At least I don’t have to feel ashamed of being Australian now Howard is gone. Such a simple thing, but it’s such a big change.

“And don’t worry. They’ll have plenty of time to learn to hate themselves when they get older.”

I really hoped this article was a joke, but it’s not.
Why 10 is too young for your first Brazilian

Last year Nair, makers of hair-removal products, released their Pretty range, aimed at 10 to 15-year-olds, or, as they call them, “first-time hair removers”. Yes, you heard right. Ten-year-olds. Girls — children — in grades 5 and 6, encouraged to wax and chemically remove hair from their barely pubescent bodies. As online site Gawker put it, what’s next: Baby Brazilians?
Well, it seems that someone heard that throwaway phrase and spied a business opportunity, because Australian website girl.com.au is now promoting a feature about Brazilian waxes, otherwise known as a torture device in which all the hair in a woman’s nether regions is ripped off with a combination of hot wax and a high pain threshold. The website, which appears to be mostly read by girls in the nine to 14 age bracket, says of the Brazilian: “Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and it has a childlike appeal.”

But “Pretty” here is a (hairless) wolf in disguise. It might come in a range of fruity fragrances, but it’s also a non-threatening induction into a society that sets ridiculous standards for female appearance (among them, the notion that being hairy is ugly). “Pretty” ignores the fact that young people are progressing into adulthood at lightning speed, making the “tween” stage a mere formality as they rush from skipping ropes and jelly sandals to midriff tops and glitter make-up.