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Death of a gad-fly

Readers of this blog will have read the writings of Molly Ivins from time to time. By all accounts she was quite a person apart from being a gad-fly. Sadly, as a consequence of breast cancer, she passed away at the age of 62 a couple of days ago.

John Nichols , writing in The Nation, starts his tribute to Ivins:

"Molly Ivins always said she wanted to write a book about the lonely experience of East Texas civil rights campaigners to be titled No One Famous Ever Came. While the television screens and newspapers told the stories of the marches, the legal battles and the victories of campaigns against segregation in Alabama and Mississippi, Ivins recalled, the foes of Jim Crow laws in the region where she came of age in the 1950s and '60s often labored in obscurity without any hope that they would be joined on the picket lines by Nobel Peace Prize winners, folk singers, Hollywood stars or senators.

And Ivins loved those righteous strugglers all the more for their willingness to carry on."

The passing of this veteran journalist sees the numbers of those prepared to take on the big issues and the powerful diminished. Just reflect on this! How many journalists can you think of who write in a searing, questioning and challenging manner about our politicians in Australia?

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