Oh, how we shall miss Vaclav Havel. If not only for what he is, then perhaps more intensely for what he is not. He is not a president chosen by petty political designs or for his own thirst for power and fame. Whatever mistakes he may have made during this past decade (and any human being surely must have made several), he has been a symbol of the Czech consciousness and a voice of reason for the nation. He has provided the very ideal of the European figurehead presidency.
· Architect of Charter 77 [Prague Post]
Media Investigative journalism attacked
THE shots fired into the house of a Queensland journalist last week have disturbed even our most renowned investigative reporters, seasoned though they are in threats to their own wellbeing.
The only Australian journalist believed to have been murdered because of her work was heiress Juanita Nielsen, who was publishing a small paper campaigning against development in Sydney's Kings Cross when she vanished in 1975.
Chris Masters has also exposed a crook or three in almost 20 years of digging with the ABC's Four Corners. Over the years people have dumped gravel in his driveway, called fire engines to his house, forged his signature on letters and rung to tell him they know where his kids go to school, among other pleasantries.
Like Bob Bottom, Masters's gut response is that "you can't give in to this kind of intimidation". Ross Coulthart of Nine's Sunday program has also spent time under police protection, as Hedley Thomas and his family are now.
Literarure Write Stuff
· Good News for New Writers [Yahoo]
Lifestyle Self-expression, freedom
You can look original. You can dress to suit yourself. It's easier for women to be fashionable now without having to conform to certain dictates. It's been coming for a long time, mainly because of the relaxed working environment we have now. A lot of women are working for themselves now, so we've seen a shift from corporate dressing to women wearing jeans and whatever the hell else they like because they work in their own offices.
· Boho Bandwagon [My Morning Read]
Ethics When the principle watches you, dare to stare back
Writer Calvin Trillin has a column of 'Unpublished letters to the ethicist':
My husband, who is an anti-abortion activist, sincerely believes that life begins at conception. Recently, he learned that he was conceived while his parents were on vacation in Jamaica, and he has come to the conclusion that he is therefore a Jamaican and is in this country illegally. He is now talking about turning himself in and having himself deported. Am I married to a man of principle or a cuckoo bird?
· Jamaican Alien [New York]
