Quadrant articles from March 2003

Quadrant archives from March 2003

History, lies and imagination.(use of valid references in writing history)(Editorial)
March 1, 2003... IT IS TRUE that there is more than one "truth" to be discerned in any historical account, and there are always shades of grey. But there should be no misunderstanding of what Keith Windschuttle in his recent writings has been saying. He is not...

Fraser, Mugabe and the liberals. (Letters).
March 1, 2003... SIR: May I add a comment to John Roskam's most interesting article "Malcolm Fraser versus History and John Howard" (January-February 2003), particularly regarding the section on "Fraser's Foreign Policy Confusion"? Malcolm Fraser's work to...

The contemporary trial. (Letters).(Comparisons of the possible experiences of an accused in a contemporary trial in Australia to that depicted in Kafka?s allegory The Trial.)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... SIR: One could not overlook the irony of Bruce Dawe's poem, "Family Court", being placed after Nicholas Hasluck's article "The Legal Labyrinth" (January-February 2003). Mr Hasluck related Franz Kafka's surrealist allegory, The Trial, to...

The National Museum. (Letters).
March 1, 2003... SIR: Keith Windschuttle (December 2002) perpetuates an urban myth: that the National Museum of Australia in Canberra symbolically equates Australian Indigenous history with the Jewish Holocaust. It does not. Such a comparison would be both...

Blamey and the army. (Letters).(did Australian army lose confidence in General Blamey)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... SIR: Without wishing to buy into the McDonald-Colebatch disputation (Letters, December 2002, January-February 2003), I have to wonder how Chester Wilmot could have justified his advice to Prime Minister Curtin that General "Blamey had lost the...

The Chieftains. (Letters).(Paddy Moloney is the true founder of the Cheiftains (music group))(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... SIR: Sophie Masson errs (January-February 2003) in naming the Clancy brothers as founders of the traditional Irish music group the Chieftains. Paddy Moloney founded the Chieftains in 1962 at the request of his friend Gaerech Browne, the...

A post mortem on postmodernism. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2003... SIR: My thoughts are loosely related to the debate between Patrick McCauley and Alison Croggon (Letters, November 2002). Postmodernism is dead; free verse was once a battleground of philosophy for forward thinking and developmental ideas,...

Foundations of freedom of the press in Australia. .
March 1, 2003... ON THE EVENING of September 20, 1826, two privates in the 57th Regiment stationed in Sydney, Joseph Sudds and Patrick Thompson, stole some calico from a shop in York Street, around the corner from their barracks situated at what is now Wynyard...

State Secrets.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... STATE SECRETS The imagery was true. When Eve Reached with her literate fingers for the fruit, To see was both to know and to believe, And the ripe pome she plucked to feed Their dual hunger was an absolute ...

Planta Genista: Viva La Reine.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... PLANTA GENISTA: VIVA LA REINE Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine Found being Queen of France a pain, And so she wed, imagine it! The young Henry Plantagenet. Just then he seemed a better bet. She was much older than...

History as an alibi. .(the importance of truthfulness in historical scholarship)(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... IT SHOULD NOT SURPRISE that the publication of Keith Windschuttle s meticulously well-researched, courageous and illuminating volume on the fabrication of Aboriginal history has attracted so much attention, for this is without doubt one of the...

Through The Lattice Door.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THROUGH THE LATTICE DOOR This house, in lattice to the eaves, diagonals tacked across diagonals, is cool as a bottle in wicker. The sun, through stiff lozenge leaves, prints verandahs in yellow Argyle. Under...

Contra Windschuttle.(the great Australian silence - relations between colonists and Aborigines)(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... KEITH WINDSCHUTTLE is a great controversialist. In his recently published and (for the most part) generously reviewed book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, he takes issue with historians who have, "under the cloak of academic...

A Mother with Two Daughters.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... A MOTHER WITH TWO DAUGHTERS Slender, still-forming branches flanking the maternal tree, walking from and into the mother's comfortable shadow, close and straight as fence posts. Pale-cheeked, eyes large and...

On the North Coast Line.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... ON THE NORTH COAST LINE The train coming on up the Coast fitting like a snake into water is fleeing the sacrificial crust of suburbs built into fire forest. Today, smoke towers above there. We've winged along...

Literary Bucks.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... LITERARY BUCKS We turn, grins at the bar and off our phones. "Out of the way! This man is getting married!" At four pm, the groom is getting carried. Tradition lifts our drinks and not the tone; The groom is vomiting...

Surrogate motherhood and public policy. (Bioethics).
March 1, 2003... THE CURRENT DEBATES about cloning, stem cell research and embryo experimentation demonstrate the difficulties that modern liberal societies, such as Australia, are experiencing in formulating coherent public policy on bioethical issues. On...

Darwinism.(has Darwin's theory has been discredited?)
March 1, 2003... LAST DECEMBER Darwinism was attacked by a Mr John Michell, who writes a column for the British magazine the Oldie. Michell implied that Darwin's theory has been more or less completely discredited. This prompted a reply to the editor from Steve...

Environmental primitivism and the noble savage. (Environment).
March 1, 2003... I HAVE JUST RECEIVED a greeting card from a good friend of mine in New Zealand. In place of the usual little quote from Ruskin, Omar Khayyam or Helen Steiner Rice is a short paragraph on environmental awareness. It is written in the Maori...

Humpbacked whale.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... HUMPBACKED WHALE How does this calf suckle Without ingesting sea salt? Something seems to click In the mechanics of the sea Whereby, it is said, his mother Injects milk into the cupped Clamp of his mouth....

The prefabrications of Henry Reynolds.(The Fabrication of Aboriginal History)
March 1, 2003... MY ONLY SIGHTING and hearing of Henry Reynolds--"doyen of frontier historians", as Bernard Lane dryly described him recently in the Weekend Australian--did not leave me with a favourable impression. Reynolds had agreed in November 2000 to...

The moths.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THE MOTHS They cling like fridge-door magnets to the bricks' Attempt at stone, Their shades of fertilizer, wholemeal flour, Ground bone. In this brown season of the year they come To settle, flattened ...

Im Sommerwind.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... IM SOMMERWIND On a hot listless Sunday afternoon I'm sprawling on the porch by the front door While someone's radio murmurs a rune. My mother's brought a chair out to maroon Herself a moment between chore and chore...

Solving the problem of meaninglessness. .(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... IMAGINE A WORLD where the need for meaning no longer occurs; a world where we no longer seek deeper and larger purposes for our existence and no longer suffer anxiety and despair in the absence of them. Could such a world be possible? Assuming...

Homecoming: after brecht.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... HOMECOMING After Brecht The prodigal son is heading back home In the contraflow lane as the bomber swarms Head out to smother the far horizon With satellite-guided explosions. What will he find when he reaches the...

Fear of dissent.(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... IT IS EXHILARATING finally to see an authentic debate emerging between Australian historian Keith Windschuttle and professors Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan. Historians, it seems, are just as likely to "see" the facts that support their...

The refugee.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THE REFUGEE A woman wants to buy mascara. She speaks with a foreign accent. The check-out girl explains it is a luxury item and not permitted on the government's voucher. The woman holds out the mascara. Only...

Spirals to unravel a mystery (part two).(origin of language)
March 1, 2003... LANGUAGE AND THE WHEEL ON THE ORIGIN of language there will always remain a range of unanswerable questions. Was language invented extempore, or gradually developed from grunts and screeches, was it born out of pure sound and gradually...

An Improbability Of Cranes.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... An Improbability Of Cranes. They appeared in an Easter sky just before sunset I was first to hear them, and heard before I saw them. Their sound was a tuneless yodelling The sun sent red-gold notes from their wings The...

"A Leaning Towards Learning" (an HSC allegory).(Poem)
March 1, 2003... "A Leaning Towards Learning" While scratching her head she pores over his books then tackles him. While kicking a soccer ball he circles the kitchen, dodging these questions. While flipping pages ...

Sail.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... Sail Cut to a pattern nailed to the mast and boom I'm flat and tight as a ping to a finger flick. A breeze quivers a hand pulls the rudder angles and I am pregnant with the wind. The...

Vietnamese shadows, American reflections. (Film).(Far from Heaven; The Quiet American; Chicago)(Movie Review)
March 1, 2003... "I DIDN'T SEE any reason why the Englishman shouldn't be the dupe," Sir Michael Redgrave whispered as he puffed on his pipe. It was April 1973 and we were in his elegant suite at the Hotel Windsor in Melbourne. A few weeks earlier, I'd written...

Fairy Tale.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... Fairy Tale They loved study, two little girls who met: An Israelite, a Palestinian, Each with her bag of books strapped on her back Dead centre, to balance heavy weights. The girl from Israel chuckled when she read ...

An old sheep ...(Short Story)
March 1, 2003... The shepherd and his wife lived on the upper side of the road leading to the old Roman bridge. Their isolated abode was a small, square building with rough stone walls, low roof and paved stone floor. Inside was a small storage area, a...

Trying To Remember Beatniks.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... TRYING TO REMEMBER BEATNIKS Their image is less substantial than the Victorian era's. British and American varieties were different. Their drug was usually alcohol. American were men seemingly always on the road in...

The Spelling Police.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THE SPELLING POLICE Generations back they invented the IQ test brought it to school and took our brains' finger-prints. Predictably the Spelling Police came back for me. But I saw...

The Murder of Father Popieluszko.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Reasons of State: To Kill a Polish Priest, by Kevin Ruane; HarperCollins, 2002, $24.95. STRIKER BROKE OUT in communist Poland in July 1980, leading to the emergence of the independent Solidarity trade union. The trade union grew into a...

Patrick White and the Painters.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Patrick White, Painter Manque: Paintings, Painters and Their Influence on His Writing, by Helen Verity Hewitt; Miegunyah Press, 2002, $49.95. PATRICK WHITE kept a sharp eye on all that was written about him. During my fifteen years as...

The West is the Best.(a book about the terrorist threat throughout the world)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, by Roger Scruton; Continuum, 2002, about $40. WHY BROUGHT YOU US from bondage, our loved Egyptian night?" On the occasion of the American takeover of the Philippines, Kipling s...

Glimmering Substance.(A review of two books of American contemporary poetry)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Raising the Dead, by Ron Rash; Iris Press, 2002, about $25. The Light Trap, by John Burnside; Cape Poetry, 2002, about $24. THE NOTION of words as embodiments of ideas, analogous to the relationship between the body and soul, matter and...

The McCord Museum.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THE McCORD MUSEUM Cradleboards and snow-shoes wampum strings and Mr Trudeau's pin-stripe suit hang together in McCord Museum, Montreal. Things looked after on condition that we can touch the past. ...

The Tertiary Industry.(Academia Nuts)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Academia Nuts, by Michael Wilding; Wild & Woolley, 2002, $26.95. SOME AUSTRALIAN FICTION and memoir use academe as a setting but none has critically confronted its contemporary excesses as does Academia Nuts. The only forerunner, and it...

The Sculptor's Wife.(Poem)
March 1, 2003... THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE (The soft sculptures of Claes Oldenburg were sewn by his wife) Perhaps it happened this way. They met at an artists' party and he admired her dress. (Marimekko printed cotton? Very big in the...

Dry thoughts from a drought.
March 1, 2003... OUR PART OF VICTORIA is now entering its seventh year of drought. Meticulously preserved by our friend Flora, "grandfather's diaries" confirm with rich local detail the more laconic records of official meteorology: it was never so dry since...