Quadrant articles from March 2004

Quadrant archives from March 2004

Marriage for everyone, or no one?(Editorial)(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... THE FURORE over gay marriage which has seized the United States has not yet had more than the palest reflection in this country, though there are some who are doing their best to beat the issue up. Just what in fact does the homosexual lobby...

Fabrication and apology.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)(Short Story)
March 1, 2004... SIR: Ian McFarlane claims in his letter (January-February 2004) that I publicly apologised to him at a conference at the University of Tasmania in Launceston in May 2003. This is a fanciful interpretation of what I said, which was that, given...

Scholastic aesthetics.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: David Oderberg certainly makes it clear (January-February 2004) why artists might warm to a scholastic aesthetics that speaks unashamedly of the splendour of form. But does his condemnation of abstract art follow from his premises? The...

Cremation in the bush.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: May I respond to Dr John Auty's speculations concerning the 1926 Forrest River murder allegations (Letters, January-February 2004)? Unfortunately, his contribution is a pseudo-forensic one. Obviously, I defer to him in matters...

The gospels and apocrypha.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: I was gently amused by Mr Dungey's comments (Letters, January-February 2004) on my review of And Behold the Burning Bush (November 2003). I hadn't realised that the Evangelical tradition of flogging parsons had spread so far west, beyond...

Judicial activism.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: It is possible to feel sorry for Justice Michael Kirby in his proxy battle with Justice Heydon by medium of his Hamlyn Lectures (condensed in Quadrant, January-February 2004). Dyson Heydon, in his Quadrant dinner speech...

Christianity and capitalism.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: Here are some of the errors of logic, fact and argument in B.J. Coman's "Is America 'One Nation Under God'?" (December 2003). Mr Coman states: "'Atheistic communism' is a favourite term with American conservatives, but I have yet to...

Superannuation perils.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... SIR: Further to your much-needed leading article (December 2003) on the subject of superannuation, has anyone built a proper modal of the long-term consequences (or even viability) of 10 to 15 per cent of salary/wages income being paid into...

From British rights to human rights.(Law)
March 1, 2004... WHAT HAS BEEN the attitude of Australians towards the state? Many scholars have attempted to answer this question, most following in some degree the classic formulations given by Keith Hancock seventy years ago. The question has been of...

Again the Voices.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... AGAIN THE VOICES Again the voices, always the voices the self-same voice: Schnell! Schnell! though an Aussie long since, who lived in Caulfield and wholesaled fabrics in Camberwell. Again the voices, always the...

Soldiers against crime, or police in a community?(Society)
March 1, 2004... THE SIMPLE MESSAGE being put forward by Tim Priest in his Quadrant article (January/February 2004)and with Richard Basham in their book To Protect and To Serve (New Holland, 2003) is that effective policing in New South Wales has been stifled...

Climbing the Hill.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... CLIMBING THE HILL The wet grass brushed my shins this morning as I climbed the hill. Dead trunks lay around, stiff, still, arms grasping the air, charred wood crunching underfoot. Bright green, new leaf covered...

Canton Neon.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... CANTON NEON All the buildings lose their edge, dissolving in brilliant wash where a calligraphy brush splashes colours through a page crammed with characters: a phoenix soaring like a firework, all zip and...

One Night Stand.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... ONE NIGHT STAND In the grey of morning's table, with unmet intentions and an ocean of sheet between us sensuality cools to hasty goodbyes and we to winter porcelain.

It's all a conspiracy.
March 1, 2004... THERE IS SOMETHING strange going on today. In what seems to be a cave-in to British conspiracy theorists, Scotland Yard actually opens an investigation into Princess Diana's death in a car accident; Democratic candidate Howard Dean actually...

Ichneumon Wasp.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... ICHNEUMON WASP I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living body of caterpillars. --Charles Darwin,...

Three of the Never Never.(History)
March 1, 2004... THE NORTHERN ABORIGINE "kills the squatters' cattle, horses and sheep in wanton lust of blood, and he often spears the squatter's men for the sake of seeing them wriggle and writhe in mortal agony", wrote the bitter young pioneer. ...

The Pentium Primitivism of Greg Lehman.
March 1, 2004... TUCKED AWAY in the middle of Whitewash is a remarkable little chapter by Tasmanian academic and Assistant Director of the Riawunna Centre for Aboriginal Education, Greg Lehman. His contribution to the counter-attack on the first volume of Keith...

A Good Death.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... A GOOD DEATH Unless I order its instant liberation, the pet grasshopper is destined to suffer a death by adoration.

Buds.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... BUDS When will they break into bells and ballerinas those fuchsia buds that look like chilli peppers or pendants for women's ears?

The grand narratives of the National Museum.
March 1, 2004... THE DEPARTURE of Dawn Casey from the position of Director of Canberras National Museum of Australia in December 2003 has led to a welcome re-ignition of public debate about the museum, its galleries, and its politics. This debate is urgently...

Kitchen Sink Drama.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... KITCHEN SINK DRAMA On the one hand, this is Mark, washing up. But see here, beyond the pane above the altar-ware of taps, that spider again, slubbing its train of leadwork around the frame, maker and...

Switzerland.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... SWITZERLAND 1. A sure-fire hit with every train, this slow slide down the Brenner Pass: fir trees, meadows, early snow, it's all a postcard seen through glass and somewhere too The Sound of Music... ...

The Shining Slopes and Planes.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... THE SHINING SLOPES AND PLANES Having tacked loose tin panels of the car shed together Peter the carpenter walks straight up the ladder, no hands, and buttons down lapels of the roof. Now his light weight is on...

The evolving role of the governor-general.(Australia)
March 1, 2004... ORIGINAL ROLE OF ALL AUSTRALIA'S constitutionally-prescribed institutions of government, the office of governor-general has undergone the greatest adaptation since Federation. While its constitutionally-conferred powers have remained...

Flea Circus.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... FLEA CIRCUS When the time came we packed up the Big Top, stowed it in the trunk and drove off the map. Back in the dark the glass tent came alive: trapeze and cannon, plunge-pool and high-wire, everything shaken...

The Weaving Mill.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... THE WEAVING MILL Halfway to school, the saw tooth factory shook with a sound like the crowded roar of surf. The building seemed to hold a breaking sea. Those waves crashed, and I learned for my life. I crouched at...

Running Home.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... RUNNING HOME My school ruler came into its own. Dragged along fences, it stuttered like a raffle wheel. Sometimes it hauled the howl of a dog in its jittery wake, and I played it safe where old Miss Mayo ...

Snack at Grassy Creek.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... SNACK AT GRASSY CREEK for my wife Out of the upstream darkness, a tunnel of banks and branches, the creek comes flashing and sprawling into our small stretch of brightness, a clearing struck by the sun where we...

The shapely life of Alan Davidson.(Devine)
March 1, 2004... "THEY PUT THIS in for old dodderers like me," Alan Davidson remarked as he placed his hand on a polished rail before taking the first step up the stairs to the boardroom of Cricket New South Wales, formerly the New South Wales Cricket...

Birds Walking.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... BIRDS WALKING Who would think the pelican with his lumbering gait on land could lift his great body, wheel the air so suavely, and touch down like a Sunderland, pluming foam, perfectly graceful? ...

Walking Past Nightfall.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... WALKING PAST NIGHTFALL I peer to where I think the farmhouse should be. How easily I left it in the daylight, left it without globes glowing in the windows. A mopoke mopes on the far side of the flames,...

Squealing.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... SQUEALING Hauntings and huntings cram the night... as that rabbit makes known by squealing. A fox's tooth, an owl's talon... what gave it voice, then took it?

Ayer on a G string (a touch of philosophy).(Philosophy & Ideas)
March 1, 2004... WHEN THE SUBJECT MATTER of small, incidental observations recurs in otherwise unconnected accounts of events, we begin to suspect that such observations are something more than just chance happenings, peculiar to a single situation. We might...

Don't you worry about that.
March 1, 2004... We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born... --Burke...

Better Weather.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... BETTER WEATHER The children of the sky are coming home, bringing warmth all twisted up in their blue beach towels. They trail them through the trees. They've been away for weeks. They've been out there hunting...

Grapes.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... GRAPES Even in the night time larder when flamboyant tomatoes and arresting bottle necks give in to vagueness each grape is an exuberant wink. I imagine the beguiling capsules pricked, skins wrinkling as they...

She Sees Nothing.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... SHE SEES NOTHING She sees nothing romantic in the rain sleek street no lamplight glistening on wet-blacked gravel no branches nodding to the heavy night the air does not assail her nostrils sweetly ...

Phantom politics.(Politics - Jim Cairns was a standard-bearer of the Left in Australian politics)
March 1, 2004... A number of obituaries of Jim Cairns have appeared, some to remember, some to mourn the man; and to recall an era. Several biographies are in preparation, so it might be better just to wait for them to appear. I don't want to regurgitate the...

Some books of my childhood.(First Person)
March 1, 2004... APART FROM a few soft animals preserved from the earliest days, most of my childhood toys have disappeared I know not where. So have most of the books of my adolescence, though replacements for the favourites are sometimes to be found. A good...

Clint Eastwood and Mystic River.(Film)(Movie Review)
March 1, 2004... Mystic River is a finely acted, beautifully structured, skilfully directed example of American film-making at its best. It begins as a traditional thriller but soon becomes an exploration of revenge and various forms of human evil. The plot may...

Living in M--ls&B--n.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... LIVING IN M--LS&B--N I wish I lived in M--ls&B--n-- I would be lithe with long legs and could have red hair and a name like Flame without anybody laughing. Whenever I'd get together with Hugh/Roderick/Harrington, ...

The rains.(Story)(Short Story)
March 1, 2004... In morning dark, Bradson was woken by the mosque singer, as he had been each morning he had been in this Sasak village. He did not return to sleep, for another sound reached him. A sound low and monotonous at first; then rising, becoming shaped...

Clive of India kisses the echoes.(Story)(Short Story)
March 1, 2004... Clive limped to our fence, as the morning mists cleared, anxiously sipping rum. Brushing myself down, I went to reassure him. I glanced over the fence at his feet. I felt my eyes widen. From his faded slippers protruded thick, horny plates of...

Lepidopterist.(Poem)
March 1, 2004... LEPIDOPTERIST He'd like to unfold her from that lab-coat and see what kind of creature she'd become; chalk up a finger on a butterfly-wing and lay out his great design on white silk-- a dress for her to wear...

The cheap hawk and the bald eagle: the Harries Doctrine.(Benign or Imperial? Reflections on American Hegemony)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Benign or Imperial? Reflections on American Hegemony, by Owen Harries; ABC Books, 2004, $22.95. SOME YEARS AGO I was serving a stretch on the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee when we were gratified to have as a witness...

A women's place.(Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia's Female Publicans)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia's Female Publicans, by Clare Wright; Melbourne University Press, 2003, $34.95. RUSSEL WARD'S The Australian Legend is a classic study of Australian identity, politics and literature, particularly the...

Put not your trust in experts.(The War on Wisdom: Wisdom Versus Expertise in Facing Life's Problems)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... The War on Wisdom: Wisdom versus Expertise in Facing Life's Problems, edited by Digby Anderson; Social Affairs Unit, 2003, about $50. THE WAR ON WISDOM is the latest collection in Digby Anderson's explorations of civilised order. Anderson...

Not a biography.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Island and Otherland: Christopher Koch and His Books, by Noel Henricksen; Random House Australia, 2004, $29.95. CHRISTOPHER KOCH is Australia's greatest living novelist. Since the completion of his epic diptych Beware of the Past, composing...

The road to utopia.(Yellow Dog)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Yellow Dog, by Martin Amis; Vintage, 2003, $45. THE REVIEWS generally have not been good: "patchy", "silly", "terrible". Even in the charitable reviews there is a sense that something is wrong, embarrassingly wrong. So what fundamentally...

Beautiful shells.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Lost in the Foreground, by Stephen Edgar; Duffy & Snellgrove, 2003, $22. ALL GREAT POETS must face an artistic crisis at one point or another. Stephen Edgar is a great poet whose new work, according to Peter Porter, is "the equal of...

The chorus of the books.(Ryan)
March 1, 2004... I WAS STROLLING in the sunshine down that slope of Melbourne's Collins Street between Scots Church and the Melbourne Town Hall. It remains an agreeable block of city civility, even though (like everything else in this world) it isn't "what it...