This has not been a good few days. Lost lovely young friend, a sister writer, who has been sick for years. Not yet 21. So much talent and great intentions for life taken away. Then I think about children feeding off rubbish dumps, sold into slavery, dying even younger and I give thanks that at least my young friend had a loving family and a bed to ( Read more... )

I edit a little in my job as anthologist/webadmin for New Writers' Group Inc. I'm not very good at it. So I've forgiven (very quickly) whoever edited my Heckler article http://www.smh.com.au/news/heckler/ ( Read more... )

Prophet ( Read more... )

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/alan-jones-im-the-person-thats-led-this-charge/2005/12/12/1134236003153.htmlRead more... )

While in the mood to blame the media I want to air another grievance. I want a moratorium - how about a ban in fact - on the following terms in relation to deceased persons: grisly, gruesome - even grim is a bit much. They are the most loved adjectives for conveying to the hapless reader that a body has been discovered which is either very ( Read more... )

There is a story current in NSW of a very serious bashing where the young female was named and her photograph appeared, suburb etc. Next came the announcement that she had been sexually abused, then that statement was withdrawn. She remains in a coma. I thought that the press was supposed to keep sex victims safe from identification. So when there ( Read more... )

When Margo Kingston (http://margokingston.typepad.com/) recommends to our oppostion leader, Kim Beazley, that he should read Bob Menzies (famous Liberal Prime Minister) on the function of the opposition - well she has to be indicating a strong level of disappointment. The abc news ( Read more... )

My humble apologies to former Australian Prime Minister Gough. He's got front page billing on the SMH saying pretty much what his old rival Malcom Fraser said about the new detention laws. Lizzie might be right about the two men's respective achievements - see her comment to my previous post - but I guess I suffer from dislike of the adulation of ( Read more... )

Okay so now I'm regretting my flippancy over current appalling Aussie politics. I'm scared of John Howard. He really does want to create a raft of jobs with lower conditions for less skilled people (ie more desperate) people to take. His liberal (what a misnomer) government is not cringing about this interpretation. Its supposed to be good for ( Read more... )

Never mind the restrictions of liberty and reduction in working conditions, what Australia needs is to understand birds. If you feed them all day with your version of what they want they'll thrive like long green plants in a monsoon only to crash with some disease that you are too stupid to realise is connected to your behaviour. Meanwhile natural ( Read more... )