Quadrant articles from January 2003

Quadrant archives from January 2003

The Whitlam Schemozzle.(Editorial)
January 1, 2003... THE BEST DAY of the Whitlam government was just over thirty years ago, the morning after its election. After that it was downhill all the way, with crisis following blunders following crisis, and the descent onto Canberra of a flock of...

When we go to war ... (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... SIR: In his article "Clausewitz's Chameleon" (November 2002), Dr Michael Evans both ignores his own advice and appears to forget his Clausewitz. He advises that "In the West we have to reconcile how we would like to fight with how we might...

Cane cockies--an unprotected species. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... SIR: I agree with your November editorial exposing the nonsense of turning the rivers and drought-proofing Australia. I incline towards its comments regarding the pastoral industry "throwing their money about", having in boom wool times parked...

Curtin and the generals. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... SIR: I don't know what is worse about Hal Colebatch's criticism (Letters, December 2002) of my article "Reporting the Papuan Campaign" (November 2002)--his misrepresentation of my argument or his ignorance of the military history of the 1940s....

Poetry and authenticity. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... SIR: I am sorry to inform Alison Croggon (Letters, November 2002) that my objections to Emma Lew's methodology are neither misogynistic nor anti-intellectual. Quite the opposite. I love women, and therefore take their intellectual challenge...

Summer in Aberdeen. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... SIR: Peter Ryan's article (November 2002) stirred a few neurones. In April 1970 my wife and I attended the Summer Faculty Conference of the Royal College of General Practitioners in Aberdeen, Scotland. Spring was some six weeks late that...

Judicial activism and the death of the rule of law. (Law).(address by Justice Dyson Heydon)(Transcript)
January 1, 2003... I AM EXTREMELY HONOURED to have been invited to address this Quadrant dinner. I regard the institution as a vernal island which one can periodically visit as an escape from the great polluted oceans of cant washing around it. THE RULE OF...

The legal labyrinth.(Transcript)
January 1, 2003... My THEME is judgment and forgiveness, one of the many pathways that can be used to explore the legal labyrinth. Halls, corridors. courts, the nature of a legal system--the area to be investigated is vast. To reduce it to a manageable size, I...

Family Court.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... FAMILY COURT Because it's now the law, while you are still pondering the room's bland plaque informing you that hidden cameras eye your every move, and a pamphlet-rack provides more food for thought concerning whatever...

The Old Buck Rabbit. (New Spring Forest Poems).(Poem)
January 1, 2003... THE OLD BUCK RABBIT When the lights are out I step into my other lives. The old buck rabbit which bit a slice from my thirteen year old thumb (Mr Long egging me on, "Put your hand in!" as it cowered in a...

Aunt Margaret's Tea Party. (New Spring Forest Poems).(Poem)
January 1, 2003... AUNT MARGARET'S TEA PARTY Jack and I spent a summer afternoon in the cause of science measuring the correct gap from the rim of the cup to the surface of the tea. Using an ivory and brass pocket rule and a...

The Rifle Bird's Song. (New Spring Forest Poems).(Poem)
January 1, 2003... THE RIFLE BIRD'S SONG I'm woken by the rifle bird's song-- Some notes I know well. My mother, a policeman's daughter, always smelt fruit before she bought. As I was smelling a papaw an elderly woman touched my...

Malcolm Fraser versus history and John Howard. (Politics).(Common Ground: Issues That Should Bind and Not Divide Us)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... IN 1982 AN ARTICLE in the Bulletin recounted the opinions of a group of Liberal MPs about their then federal leader. The group (it was not then a faction) were labelled "deregulators". Their main interest was in cutting tariffs on textiles and...

Eat Your Greens.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... EAT YOUR GREENS Less than a week before he was to die my father left his dinner on the plate just like the children who won't even try to finish up the greens they claim to hate. Years of untouched cooking had made...

The Pearly Gates.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... THE PEARLY GATES Companionably, they stand around, the parents--mothers and just the odd father-- as if they were waiting outside a theatre or some sports ground, beside the open gate and the low brick wall at...

Four O'Clock.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... FOUR O'CLOCK The fat clock ticks and ticks and ticks and tells Me stuff I didn't want to know I knew. Across a million billion windowsills The stellar dust is whispering of you. A Balkan website that I can't access ...

Whatever happened to sweetness and light?(Matthew Arnold)(Biography)
January 1, 2003... FOR MOST of the twentieth century Matthew Arnold was treated as a relic of Victoriana. He coined a number of memorable phrases, such as "sweetness and light" or "the higher journalism". He also famously categorised his countrymen as Barbarians...

Self-portrait With Monkeys.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MONKEYS after Frida Kahlo It's on days like these-- when the plaster cast has come off, that I need to paint my monkeys next to the strelitzia flower. It's on a morning like this-- when I...

Red-head with Phosphorus, 1976.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... RED-HEAD WITH PHOSPHORUS, 1976 Red-haired girl in a white bikini who he saw for the first time aglow on a launch moored in a Rottnest bay twenty-five years ago, inviting them up from their sailing dinghy to...

At the Sign of the Golden Cabbage.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... AT THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN CABBAGE There was a hotel called the Tudor, which Peter Hellier transmogrified into "le chou d'or"; hence "the golden cabbage" I'll tell you, she was as willing as me, As warm as the sand...

Love Poem.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... Love POEM I love a stickiness that follows the perfume of petunias, a red-gum encrusted with its own shed skin, the wraith of a cobweb, tethered by one light foot to the roof and the hooting of coots ...

Phone Message.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... PHONE MESSAGE This is a recorded message. We shall not tell you who it is you are speaking with, nor reveal what number you have reached. No-one who lives at this number has time to answer just a few questions, ...

A Bowl of Soup.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... A BOWL OF SOUP "But Great Snakes!" Quex clutched his forehead, thunderstruck, "What you told us in the billiard room was true! "As the moon rose all the natives ran amok, "And beheaded several members of the crew. ...

Spirals to unravel a mystery: (part one). (Language).(role of sound in human activitiy)
January 1, 2003... Their talk died down into a listening silence. --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings LANGUAGE is an abstract noun. Attempts to define its nature have inevitably led to circuitous statements that George Steiner has aptly designated as...

Poets Corner.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... POETS CORNER Why do poets get a corner when they give a cosmos?

Child's Play.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... CHILD'S PLAY Let's play humans I'll be the oppressor And you'll be the oppressed

Night Vigil, Evergreen Cemetery.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... NIGHT VIGIL, EVERGREEN CEMETERY After his six year old son died of kidney failure, Alfredo told us that he could find peace some nights only by going to the cemetery and sleeping on the child's grave. He was acting out...

Afterwards.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... AFTERWARDS And will you recognize yourself without the veil and wedding ring, without a book of poems to lay a hand on and swear that for once it is the whole truth? And can you count on daffodils or a hedge...

Light (Fruit of Life).(Poem)
January 1, 2003... LIGHT (FRUIT OF LIFE) after Frida Kahlo Since sunrise I have been gulping mouthfuls of light. I invited the sun into my bedroom. He sits on my bedside table like an orange spider, entangling my still life in...

The legend of Judas Kane.(Short Story)
January 1, 2003... Poorhouse was convinced, or claimed to be convinced, which was far from necessarily the same thing, that Judas Kane was much older than he said he was. Twenty years older. What Judas claimed was to be younger by a few years than us. Poorhouse...

Frail.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... FRAIL Deep, back behind your throat is a long drop, and at the bottom on the diaphragm is the pool of sadness. And as you go about your day now, the kids are off your hands life is about keeping...

How Would They?(Poem)
January 1, 2003... HOW WOULD THEY? How would I know how a refugee feels? How would I know how a prisoner feels? How would I know how a victim feels? How would I know how a terrorist feels? How would I know how a gardener feels? ...

Fons origo.(Short Story)
January 1, 2003... Pyrenees, about 40 AD Before there was any earth or sea, before the canopy of Heaven stretched overhead, Nature presented the same aspect the worm over, to which men have given the name of Chaos. --Ovid, Metamorphoses Exile is...

Mushrooms.(Short Story)
January 1, 2003... Lance bounced in from the Saturday morning clinic and announced, "There are mushrooms about. Let's go and get some after lunch." "But it hasn't been wet enough, or sunny enough," Fleur replied. She did not feel like walking around a wet...

A fine balance.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... A FINE BALANCE The shimmering sea is kind to the coast here. White cliffs, long schooled in deportment walk proudly, straight-backed, balancing the green leather-bound downs on their heads. Sometimes a jealous wind...

Hold on.(Short Story)
January 1, 2003... Mrs Jordan scowled at her daughter, "What's the matter with you? I told you to go before we left home." Theresa shrugged her shoulders and looked down at the floor. She was a thin child with dull copper-coloured hair and a smattering of...

Remembrance of an Open Wound.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... REMEMBRANCE OF AN OPEN WOUND after Frida Kahlo Whenever we make love, you say it's like making love to a crash-- I bring the bus with me into the bedroom. There's a lull, like before the fire brigade arrives,...

Self-portrait with Monkey and Parrot.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MONKEY AND PARROT after Frida Kahlo These are the self-portraits that sell-- my face only, surrounded by my pets, not the broken and open body. See how I am staring straight at you, I who painted...

Island in the deep.(The Many-Coloured Land: A Return to Ireland by Christopher Koch)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The Many-Coloured Land: A Return to Ireland, by Christopher Koch; Picador, 2002, $30. THIS IS CHRISTOPHER KOCH'S first book of nonfiction for a while (his 1987 collection of essays, Crossing the Gap, was reprinted recently, however). A...

Radiance.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... RADIANCE I recall it still, that look on her face after the long agony-that radiance as she held our baby red with her blood.

Bunging on Side in America. (Books).(Snobbery: The American Version by Joseph Epstein)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Snobbery: The American Version, by Joseph Epstein; Houghton Mifflin, 2002, about $50. SNOBBERY IN BRITAIN, particularly in southern England, is well documented. There are books about it (of which Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige is probably...

Mistake.(Poem)
January 1, 2003... MISTAKE A mistake I've made for most of my life has been to think the mundane is not really part of my life but merely a hindrance to it.

A better place. (Ryan).
January 1, 2003... IN 1986, when the great, late and still-lamented Robert Haupt was editor of the National Times weekly, he published for me an essay for which he chose the title "End of the Dreamtime". It had not been intended as a contribution to Robert's...