Judith Rant

 After Australia Day & the return to school & work for most people, I always like to consider the Australia Day awards & this year as with most other awards, I am always concerned about the number of people who are given ‘gongs’ for essentially doing the jobs for which they are employed & for which they paid  (usually well).  The other group of potentially undeserving ‘gong’ receivers are those who don’t actually live in Australia & often haven’t for some time. While on the subject of Australia Day, I also get annoyed at the actions of those who behave badly on the day. Yes we are free to express our feelings by protesting about things with which we do not agree but so many people who protested on Monday seem to have not a clue about the history of that day. In essence they are protesting about the wrong thing.

 The apology- dare I say the grovelling apology - given to Abdel-Fattah  by the rejigged committee of Writers’ Week, has made me beyond furious. We have now become a nation which caves into bullying & threats rather than standing up to said bad behaviour. What kind of message does this send to our already impressionable young people? What it says is that if you don’t get your own way then just have tantrum & soon enough people will give in. It was all right for Abdel-Fattah to be part of an unpleasant doxxing campaign against Jewish creative people but not all right for her actions to be pointed out. What WAS the original committee thinking in the first place? Feel free to comment.

 As a published writer, I am of course interested in Writers’ Week in Adelaide although after a less than satisfactory attendance as a member of the audience many years ago I am not a fan. It seems to me that the decision to remove Randa Abdel- Fattah  from the event is completely reasonable & has everything to do with her ill considered response which shows lack of sensitivity & insight to the grief experienced by Australian Jews and most other reasonable people. Those writers who are following her example obviously haven’t anything important to say as they opt out so easily. Unfortunately the literary event has become more & more politicised & more & more ‘woke’ - a term I loathe. Perhaps it is time to call for the end of the event.

 Not so much a rant as a request to all who love the English language and who appreciate that its correct & accurate use can be a great power for good. Firstly can people stop using ‘incredibly’ in every oral situation which seems to need some emphasis. Ditto for ‘iconic’. In addition everyone who speaks publicly feels the need to mention ‘community’  - whatever that means. Another developing favourite is ‘social cohesion’ - the PM must have used the phrase a dozen or more times in his Royal Commission announcement yesterday. I’d also like to mention that ‘it’s’ only ever means ‘it is’. It’s not the possessive which is ‘its’ without the apostrophe. I know - those pesky little punctuation marks which cause people (& predictive text) so many problems. Have a good weekend and enjoy the cooler weather.

 I realise that I have been very remiss in not posting anything for several months . This is not because I have not been able to find things on which to comment but rather because there have been so many things which warrant  discussion. I have been galvanised into action by the events of the last day or so - and it’s not the Ashes - sorry all cricket fans. Rather it’s the US invasion of Venezuela. I’m sure that Maduro is a tyrant or a despot or at very least in power via very dodgy means. But … does this give Trump the right to send in troops to kidnap him and his wife while bombing the capital.  The question is not rhetorical because if the international community allowed this every time a more powerful country had a falling out/disagreement with a weaker country or indeed if the latter had something that the former country wanted the end result would be chaos. Is this the way the world is headed? There are also some other questions that need consideration: 1) How is Tr...