Quadrant articles from May 2002

Quadrant archives from May 2002

Stem cells, cloning, and cannibalism. (Editorial).
May 1, 2002... WHILE IT IS NOW certain that the use of embryonic stem cells in Australian medical research will go ahead, and clearly the majority of the community endorses this decision, the issue is not as morally clear cut as most of the advocates of the...

Refugees and migrants. (Letters).
May 1, 2002... SIR: Having followed the immigration debate for many years, I was dismayed by Andrew Kaldor's moral equation (March 2002) between the bribing of officials of repressive regimes and payments to people-smuggling syndicates for illegal entry into...

Even blind Freddy ... (Letters).
May 1, 2002... SIR: "You'd have to be a bit of a dill" to appreciate my essay on Australian speech (January-February 2002), writes Suzanne Baker (Letters, March). This is the approved television method of dealing with language items--throw around a lot of...

Democracy's failures. (Letters).
May 1, 2002... SIR: Ronald Conway's wide-ranging criticism (March 2002) of the shortcomings of democracy are not new and were described by de Tocqueville and many others. Few of the framers of the American Constitution were for a democratic government; rather...

Measuring performance. (Letters).
May 1, 2002... SIR: Chief Justice Spigelman (March 2002) is right--not all the things that count in an activity like the administration of justice can be counted. Organisational performance might need qualitative assessment rather than quantitative...

The immeasurable humanities. (Universities).
May 1, 2002... ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO the University of Adelaide circulated the university's new strategic plan with much fanfare and hype. Its mission statement boldly announced that by the year 2022 the university would be recognised as one of the top...

That Night.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... THAT NIGHT The night when Genghis Khan met Cousin Hugh And Auntie Dilys blasted off for Mars, Down by the rail yard, back of B&Q, We stole away between the abandoned cars And found a place and sat for hours talking. ...

Phone Call.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... PHONE CALL "Still fossiking in old anthologies, sifting through abandoned realms of gold", you ring to say hello and tell me how you've found another group of the erased, "writers who stood alone, who speak for all."...

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 1900-2002.(Obituary)
May 1, 2002... QUEEN ELIZABETH, the Queen Mother, was the longest-lived of all Britain's queens, perhaps the oldest royal since Methuselah, and the family's last surviving Victorian. The ingredients of her popularity and influence were an interesting mix:...

A Pair of Scissors.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... A PAIR OF SCISSORS I bought these scissors forty years ago, a student tourist on a trip to Spain; they cost about five shillings, not more, "Toledo steel, the best blades of their kind"; they've kept their point, their...

The Elephant in the Garden.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... THE ELEPHANT IN THE GARDEN What they fail to see is the elephant in the garden. As they straighten a drooping stake supporting the broad beans, it rakes a prehensile mink over the peas. And as they thin...

Three dinosaurs and a dragon. (Foreign Affairs).(Bill Clinton, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke at the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification in China)
May 1, 2002... FROM THURSDAY 21st to Saturday 23rd March this year, a conference was held in Sydney to promote the reunification of Taiwan with China. It was organised by a Chinese-government-sponsored body called the Australian Council for the Promotion of...

On Balance.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... ON BALANCE As the storm waned, she walked alone in the garden, bleak in the bad weather. She stood a long minute staring at fallen stakes and at blackened stalks. She kicked over stones, and picking one...

Confessions of a bush treasurer. (Society).
May 1, 2002... CONTRARY TO OUR imagined reputation for hell-raising, we Aussies are natural bureaucrats. Put three of us together, and we have a president, a secretary and a treasurer in no time. The president is usually the most gregarious, and sees herself...

The dangers of harm minimisation.(Australia's National Drug Strategic Plan)
May 1, 2002... THE PRINCIPLE of "harm minimisation" has underpinned the national drag offensive since 1985. In the review document The National Drug Strategic Plan 1993-97, produced by the National Drug Strategy Committee, harm minimisation is described as...

Archaeologist.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... ARCHEOLOGIST It is only later when the dust settles that we come back and carefully uncover the document seeing how the years have made defenceless all the things we thought we knew ...

Patroller of the stratosphere of ideas. (Philosophy & Ideas).(Karl Popper: The Formative Years, 1902-1945 )
May 1, 2002... KARL POPPER almost came to the University of Sydney in 1945. John Anderson invited him to join the staff in Philosophy but Popper delayed his decision in the hope of an offer from the London School of Economics. When that offer came he withdrew...

Higher and closer. (Devine).(gay rights in Australia)
May 1, 2002... JIM FARMER, a leader with Martin Luther King of the black civil rights movement in the United States, once remarked of a dichotomy of attitude in his native land: "In the North they don't care how high you get so long as you don't get too...

Klezmer.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... KLEZMER Accordion and saxophone sing together arm in arm the outline of a river's curve, a fiddle from the floor of Europe that swung again as Broadway tunes along the 1920s. Such music after eighty...

Ten Questions.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... TEN QUESTIONS 1. How is it that a man will train two years to fly into a wall? 2. How is it he can learn to set his cross-hair sights for paradise aiming at a tower? 3. How is it that in...

Comparisons.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... COMPARISONS Six-year-olds at boarding school will be a ready measure, children of the western gentry too far out to go--or mother done a bunk. Three times each year they'd be bussed home and then come...

The tent: Cessnock show 1969. (First Person).(The Death of Juan Bravos)
May 1, 2002... I COULD HEAR THE CALLER throwing out challenges to "any mug brave enough to step into the ring with my fighters" and promising ten dollars if he could last three rounds. I could feel the drum they pounded to get your attention--"Boom, boom,...

Poem.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... POEM Try to describe these things the figure told him seedlings turned toward sunlight butterflies coming in swarms sooner or later soon you'll lapse into silence. Those who tried before she had his...

Thomas the private tank engine. (Economics).(Railtrack)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... A GREAT DEAL of ink has been spilled, not only in Britain but also in Australia, about the Blair government's decision late last year to "deprivatise" Railtrack, the private company that owned and operated Britain's track network following...

Thirty Four Years On.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... THIRTY FOUR YEARS ON I watch fireworks two streets away spring the night of its entrapment the way a magician springs a waterfall of coloured flowers from a black top-hat. Don't tell me nothing is as it was....

The song of Peter Dawson. (Music).(Peter Dawson: The World's Most Popular Baritone)
May 1, 2002... THE AUSTRALIAN bass-baritone Peter Dawson (who was born in Adelaide in 1882 to Scottish immigrant parents and died in Sydney in 1961) had a remarkable recording career. It lasted from 1904, when he began his association with the Gramophone...

Father and Sons.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... FATHER AND SONS I He's been away for a week, so I telephone. "Dad, your voice is too loud." II Two weeks with my sister-in-law and her ordered parenting: my boys are like polished silver. ...

The mystery of the Namban Caves. (Australia).(location of caves being sought after entrances sealed in early 20th century)
May 1, 2002... THERE IS EVIDENCE that some of the most spectacular caves in the world are within a couple of hours' drive of Perth, lost and forgotten for more than ninety years. As well as containing natural formations of extraordinary beauty, they are...

Moments.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... MOMENTS your buttered smile toasts the morning I cling to the escarpment of your favour only Rorschach can read the spider legs of your inkblot heart

The Irresistible.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... THE IRRESISTIBLE Even on the stroke of sixty, Hiroshige could not resist them, this flight of Kanazawa cranes across the early moon.

Fire.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... FIRE It is the wrack of a forest By a furtive hand But a swimming grace Is the sleight of a bird Up a tree's sleeve And out at the top, Over the shoulder, The bone of the Dandenongs.

I am the Princess Living in London.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... I AM THE PRINCESS LIVING IN LONDON She shook me awake, she couldn't let me sleep. The husband hoovering and whistling long thin arms folded across his chest. I vanish and I return. White hot. It...

Fact and faction. (Film).
May 1, 2002... DID HALLE BERRY and Denzel Washington's joint Oscars as Best Actor and Best Actress at this year's Academy Awards signal the end of the covert racism that has so long disfigured American cinema? At present it's probably too early to tell....

The Lord of the Rings: the film or the book?
May 1, 2002... FILM PURISTS tend to regard any book upon which a film is based as at best an irrelevance, insisting that a film be assessed on its own cinematic merits. Part of this attitude is indicative of an anxiety that film might still be regarded as a...

Apology for a Life.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... APOLOGY FOR A LIFE I'm sorry I turned up unwelcome, No, my father's not thoughtful I know, And he wouldn't take no for an answer, There was no point in telling him so. So no doubt you were right not to tell...

Fan mail.
May 1, 2002... 21st August Dear Katrina, I hope you are well. I just wanted to write a short note to let you know how thrilling it was to finally meet you. I'm sure you'll remember me. I'm the clumsy guy who spilled wine on your shoe at the opening...

From Two Camps of Freedom.(Demons and Democrats: 1950s Labor at the Crossroads, Night Train to Granada: From Sydney Bohemia to Franco's Spain--an Offbeat Memoir)
May 1, 2002... Demons and Democrats: 1950s Labor at the Crossroads, by Gavan Duffy; Freedom Publishing, 2002, $27.95. Night Train to Granada: From Sydney Bohemia to Franco's Spain--an Offbeat Memoir, by G.B. Harrison; Pluto Press, 2002, $27.95. AT...

Some Types of Pleasure.
May 1, 2002... Quirky Qwerty: The Story of the Keyboard Your Fingertips, by Torbjorn Lundmark; University of NSW Press, 2001, $24.95. WE ARE ANXIOUS about text. Those of us who love it, and who believe in it, sense that there is a growing body of people...

Woolf's Bane.(Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf? A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf)(Poem)
May 1, 2002... Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf? A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf, by Irene Coates; Soho Press, 2000, about $60. HIGHBROWS are awfully idealistic about humanity in the mass, but sometimes they have rather poor attitudes towards...

The Once and Future Cromwell.(Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity)(Poem)
May 1, 2002... Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity, by Blair Worden; Penguin, 2002, $49.95. NEVER HAS parliament sunk so low." This British lament appears at first blush to be an eloquent cri de coeur emanating from...

Love and Money.(Straw Polls, Paper Money)(Poem)
May 1, 2002... Straw Polls, Paper Money, by David Love; Viking Penguin, 2001, $32. THE NAME of David Love will be familiar to many readers of Quadrant as economics writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review and producer/manager...

Cheese Man.(Poem)
May 1, 2002... CHEESE MAN As crusty as old cheese soft camembert at heart we slice you up each greedy for a piece and you pretending tough run in all directions to make us whole

Omphaloskeptically. (Ryan).(thoughts on the belly button)
May 1, 2002... BROWSING, as occasionally I do, through old volumes of Who's Who in Australia, I chanced to flick over page 668 of the issue of 1980. There was the biography of my old friend Cyril Pearl, author and editor, journalist, historian and wit. His...