Quadrant articles from December 2004

Quadrant archives from December 2004

Religion and democracy.(Editorial)
December 1, 2004... THERE HAS OFTEN been a degree of tension in the relationship between democratic politics and religion over the last hundred years or so, and indeed ever since democracy in something like its modern form has been either the aim of political...

Maths and the weather.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: James Franklin's suggestion to assign a few smart mathematicians and statisticians to the problem of climate scepticism (Letters, November 2004) indicates an unfamiliarity with the problem. Climate is essentially a coupled, non-linear,...

Abnormal weather, past and future.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: The article by Garth W. Paltridge, "The Politicised Science of Climate Change" (October 2004), was of great interest to me. I have doubted the theory that much of climate change at present taking place is due to man's activities. In 1948,...

Anglosphere co-operation.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: In my article "David Day's Defence Mythology" (November 2004) I inadvertently omitted an important point. Day claims that in the Second World War Britain did not send Australia naval help at the time of the Japanese threat. I mentioned...

Society and the university.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: I so much agreed with what Rodney Nillsen (November 2004) had to say about universities that it was a nasty shock to come across his misuse of Margaret Thatcher's dictum that "there is no such thing as society". Such misuse had long been...

The split mattered.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: Robert Murray's "Looking Back on Evatt and the Split" (October 2004) covers most of the issues involved but not without some distortion or omission. The claim of those in the Victorian ALP (AC) was recognised by the Victorian courts...

Postmodernism and common sense.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... SIR: This is an open letter to Rob Foot ("Perils of the Postmodern Pathway", September 2004): Dear Mr Foot, You wanted to understand why the vagrant beggar was described as a hypocrite, and that required subscribing to the theory of...

Is there only secular democracy? Other possibilities for the third millennium.(Philosophy & Ideas)
December 1, 2004... ONE OF THE GREAT vices of our age is that we get used to things too quickly. The German philosopher Nietzsche, a master of the dubious aphorism, once remarked that what does not kill us makes us stronger. He held that this was one of the marks...

Why "save the Murray"?(Environment)
December 1, 2004... I WAS SURPRISED when I learned that the Australian was running a "Saving the Murray" campaign. I realised that journalists often fail in their quest for the truth, but I assumed that they at least subscribed to the ideal. Campaigning--organised...

The sickness unto death on being human in the age of ecology.
December 1, 2004... "NOTHING," observed Dr Johnson, "can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature." In fact, the substance of this sentence is almost the definition of a quotable quote. We tend to go back again and again to those...

Mother.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... MOTHER And then she's old, and dying close and unavoidable as the whiff of the orderly's aftershave, the veins too blue for that parched map of a face. "I'm glad you're here." Then, silences later: "I'm glad...

The scepticism that dare not speak its name.(Religion)
December 1, 2004... NO DOUBT for the non-religious consumers of media, the debate in the churches over homosexuality--constantly simmering and occasionally bubbling over--is pretty incomprehensible. People have diverse sources of pleasure, and there's a postmodern...

Is Jensenism compatible with Christianity?
December 1, 2004... A RECENT BIOGRAPHY of Marcus Loane, evangelical Anglican Archbishop of Sydney in the 1960s, records that as a student at Moore Theological College he would read during lectures to avoid having to listen to the liberal Principal. When you are...

You're Next.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... YOU'RE NEXT Visitors choose a suitable face when they call to inspect us in this place; eyes stare out of bone and gristle, glances slide as sharp as thistle; vandal eyeballs strip the room, decide what's...

The Old School.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... THE OLD SCHOOL Pushed down a flight of stairs at twelve, I missed four steps and broke my foot. I hobbled to the top again, And passed the afternoon in class In agony, then took my bus To the railway...

The cycle of terror.(History)
December 1, 2004... THE TWENTIETH CENTURY had two world wars. It did something else, too, no less tragic and original. It was the first age to practise terror by concentrating civilians by the thousand for slaughter in lonely places. The new terror was...

The tanned human skin of Nantes.
December 1, 2004... What then is this Thing, called La Revolution, which like an Angel of Death, hangs over France, noyading, fusillading, fighting, gun-boring, tanning human skins? La Revolution is but so many alphabetic letters; a thing nowhere to be laid hands...

Why attacking Iraq made strategic sense.(Defence)
December 1, 2004... THERE IS a Principle of War which can be gainfully employed to argue support for the political decision to attack Iraq. The Principles, taught in military colleges around the world, urge practitioners in their military planning to use Offensive...

Napoli.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... NAPOLI Across profound corridors hanging from ornate protrusions and altanes the most lyrical laundry I have seen, and I assure you that here is a thing to remark-- that these are far more than just drying singlets. ...

The republican succession: two heads (of state) are better than one.(The Constitution)
December 1, 2004... AUSTRALIAN REPUBLICANS were expecting to win the referendum in 1999. Or at least, if some did suspect that inevitability might not be quite enough to carry the day, they were not prepared to lose. It shows. The revised "Turnbull model" was...

Short Fall.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... SHORT FALL when I hear of those who don't make it the failed priest who can never return to the family fold in Ireland the London student on her way back to Illinois leaping from the ship's rail ...

Three decades after Medibank.(Politics)
December 1, 2004... NEARLY THIRTY YEARS ago, James McAuley and Peter Coleman gave me space in Quadrant to voice my concerns about Medibank. Over the ensuing decades, in Quadrant and elsewhere, I examined other issues in health care. As Medicare, nee Medibank,...

The Afghan observer.(Devine)
December 1, 2004... A USEFUL WAY of repairing our ramshackle electoral system might be to invite a team of Afghan observers to scrutinise our next important election and make recommendations. Already, in its first free election, Afghanistan has introduced...

Unauthorized biography: chapter two: school days.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY Chapter Two: School Days Always unhappy at grammar school most things closed against her from the start incorrectly packing a school case with adjectives was made to dress in the strict...

Bicycling.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... BICYCLING Bicycling is like philosophy A balanced moving with invisible support Depending on a circularity that carries nonetheless A forward motion which the moment that it stops Causes a complete...

Liberal boofheads: (a chapter from Legends of the Baggy Green).(Sport)
December 1, 2004... That's not a nice feeling, when it goes between your legs. --Tony Greig, Channel Nine COMMENTATORS HAVE long been the butt of sports comedy, and some live in terror of making a terminal mistake. The media was the target for so many...

Stumped for grace.
December 1, 2004... MANNING CLARK was a keen and successful wicketkeeper-batsman at the University of Melbourne in the mid-1930s, so it was natural that he should seek to play cricket for Oxford University in 1939 when he took up his studies there. He impressed...

Sulis Minerva in stonely.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... SULIS MINERVA IN STONELY You would not know there was an ancient well behind this forsythia, until it rains and then you hear that hollow passing-bell tolling a pure life laid down for the mains, reminding you of...

The farm.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... THE FARM Last to roost and first to rise The guinea fowl run through the orchard. Fat schoolgirls in grey uniforms shouting "The rain girls! Run!" Three peacocks perch On the verandah railing. Their grey legs...

George Silk (1916-2004).(Obituary)(Obituary)
December 1, 2004... EARLIER THIS YEAR I received a letter from Marjory Silk: George was failing, and one of his comforts was my 1994 book, War Cameraman: The Story of Damien Parer. Somehow the stout paperback had been virtually read to pieces, and could I find...

Radiation phobia and phantom risks.(Science)
December 1, 2004... IN THE SEPTEMBER Quadrant, Leslie G. Kemeny argued persuasively that nuclear energy must be reexamined in Australia, because this is power generation that does not produce greenhouse gases. On Lateline on October 18, Tony Jones interviewed...

To a friend on her birthday.(First Person)
December 1, 2004... THANK YOU, Ann and Lee, for asking me to make a few remarks on this special day. It is Madeleine's day so I will be brief. We all know something of Madeleine's full and varied life, of her special talents: as critical art collector,...

Neighborhood Girl: for Chalmers Johnson.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... NEIGHBORHOOD GIRL She's new to the neighborhood, her family just moved in From Greece or somewhere, she's a great, tall, gawky girl With braces and earrings and uneven skin: Hormones and acne, her change is coming in, ...

Getting published in Australia.(Literature)
December 1, 2004... IN SPITE OF ALL the dire forecasts of the death of the book, we live in an era in which there are more books published than ever before. CDs, the internet and the fabulous e-book hand-held computer screen were supposed to have consigned books...

Imaginal.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... IMAGINAL A hummingbird hovering at our hanging basket. I bellow for the others, call to our neighbours as it whirrs over the fence--a hummingbird! Here? Out of the question, I realise, but look--there-- feathery...

New American noir.(Film)
December 1, 2004... ONE OF THE fascinating quirks of American film history is that the dark thrillers or film noirs were made when US fortunes were at their height: the Second World War was won (almost won, for some classics like 1944's Double Indemnity); there...

Sleep.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... SLEEP Better in here than the fantasy realm Of interest, output, demand. Sudden things happen and pass, and are no way connected: Silent doors open and shut upon rooms with more doors. People give chase or are...

Spools.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... SPOOLS Inside everyone's mind, an endless spool's played continually, a saga in which the distinguished lead character is our self. Revolving like a windlass, or like a loop of video tape, the ongoing plot has a...

D Day Sixty Years On.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... D DAY SIXTY YEARS ON They wade ashore and are so slow, strapped to their burdens in the tidal pluck. The TV tells me nothing I don't know. My birth is five years on from this. So why my savage impulse now to wish...

Finding Linda.(Short Story)
December 1, 2004... She sat on the stairs, in the old terrace house in Bayswater, and there was something forlorn about her. Her elbows were propped on her knees and her chin was in her hands, and her dark hair fell to her shoulders. Her eyes met mine as I walked...

Teen Town for the class of '68.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... TEEN TOWN for the class of '68 Off North Grand and beside the creek on a dead-end road lies Teen Town. We hung out there, biding our time as the 60's rolled in on the air waves: Beach Boys, Beatles and the Byrds beat...

The dangerous life and enigmatic death of Arthur Koestler: waiting for the new biography.(Biography)
December 1, 2004... NEXT YEAR is the centenary of Arthur Koestler's birth and will be the occasion for a calmer reassessment of his oeuvre than has been possible during the bitter controversies of the past twenty years. In his native Budapest, where his books were...

Exploring for empire.(Encyclopedia of Exploration, 1800 to 1850)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Encyclopedia of Exploration, 1800 to 1850, compiled by Raymond John Howgego; Hordern House Rare Books, 2004, $245. HARD ON THE HEELS of the widely acclaimed first volume of Raymond Howgego's Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 comes this...

A politics of duty.(Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard, by Judith Brett; Cambridge University Press, 2004, $37.95. THERE HAW BEEN few studies of Australia's liberals and conservatives, nor of their leading...

Half the ancient world.(The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, edited by Roger D. Woodard; Cambridge University Press, 2004, $299. ALTHOUGH THE TITLE of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages promises a great deal that...

Quick and lively.(Parker & Quink)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Parker & Quink, by Jennifer Compton; Indigo, 2004, $18. THE MOST STRIKING aspect of Jennifer Compton's fourth collection is the lively voices of imagined characters with unexpected points of view: a young Neanderthal man, a boy serving in a...

Planet of the felinoids.(Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War, by Hal Colebatch; Bach, 2003, $45. THE CONCEPT of science fiction can repel. It can be bleak, pretentious, obscure, or horrific, and the element of actual science can bore and confuse. However, Hal...

Philosophical synthesis East-West.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections: Philosophical Perspectives on Greek and Chinese Science and Culture, by G.E.R. Lloyd; Oxford University Press, 2004, $82.95. OCCASIONALLY one comes across a philosophical expose that by its brevity,...

Debts of gratitude.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Brief Lives, by Peter Ryan; Duffy & Snellgrove, 2004, $22. I FIRST HEARD of Peter Ryan in the late 1980s, when he began a fortnightly column in the Melbourne Age. Newspaper columns come and go, often without leaving a trace in the reader's...

The devil and the deep blue sea.(Editorial)
December 1, 2004... IF WE HAPPENED to be looking for some exemplary institution at the cutting edge of "social progress"--some paragon of permissiveness, of "inclusion" and political correctness--few of us would think at once of the Royal Navy. (Nor, for that...