Les Murray’s latest, Taller When Prone
Poet Les Murray is favourite Australian in the race for the Nobel Prize according to British bookmakers Ladbrokes.
The bookies put Les Murray at an equal seventh in the running for the prize at 11/1 along with Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. The current frontrunner is Swedish poet and translator Tomas Transtromer at 5/1. Two other Australian authors made the list – David Malouf at 50/1 and Peter Carey, out of favour with the punters at 100/1. But if you’re looking to back an outside chance the longest odds are for Bob Dylan at 150/1.
Before you go blowing your winnings, it’s worth noting that the bookies rarely hit the mark. As Galleycat points out last year’s prize was looking like a cert for Amos Oz at 4/1 odds, but ended up going to Romanian-born German author Herta Müller.
The Intelligence Squared debate Feminism Has Failed of last week ago is still raging online.
Virginia Hausegger
One debater, Virginia Haussegger, has published an edited version of her speech over at ABC’s the Drum. For Haussegger the discourse is international and she argues that if we look beyond our own borders the rights of women are less important than culture. She points to the Pacific where 60% of nations have no laws against domestic violence and “73 per cent of women in the Solomons think it’s OK for a husband to beat his wife”. She argues that “Traditional, cultural practices that assert male authority will always disadvantage women. So why do we kow-tow to them?”
Monica Dux, who argued that feminism has not failed re-published her debate at the Age online. Dux weighs in with “Saying that feminism has failed is short-sighted and simplistic, because it misunderstands and underestimates both feminism and the problems feminism is seeking to solve.” She indicates the advances feminism has made in the workplace and the home, but sees debate among feminists as being crucial to creating change. Dux argues, “Feminism has given us a language to talk about these issues.”
In response to Michaela McGuire’s piece questioning whether she is a feminist, Mel Campbell has followed Dux’s advice and continued debate over at the Dawn Chorus. Campbell says she’s experienced the difficulty of being part of the debate – finding herself flamed with comments on the net – but she “never abandoned my conviction that I am a feminist, or become less willing to point out and condemn gender-based inequity as I see it”.
Campbell goes on to define her own feminism:
It’s the belief that nobody should be denied dignity, respect or opportunities – personal or professional, in public or at home, as a citizen or in relationships – solely because of their gender. If you believe this, and you don’t like seeing people disrespected or disempowered because of their gender, you’re a feminist.
In an age where only 10% of kids walk to school by themselves, Lenore Skenazy reckons parents are getting more worried as the world is getting more litigious and the media hypes fear of abduction.
The solution? Free-range parenting, where kids develop responsibility and to learn entertain themselves. It doesn’t sound too radical, but Lenore Skenazy has been called “America’s worst mom” for letting her 9-year-old son go on the subway by himself. She argues that kids need to experience their own childhood’s without panic parenting.
