Quadrant articles from November 2001

Quadrant archives from November 2001

The re-emergence of a rational, libertarian left. (Editorial).(Editorial)
November 1, 2001... PERHAPS THE MOST interesting aspect of the response to the atrocities of 11th September is the emergence, or rather re-emergence, of a rational Left. For years, essentially since the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, the Left has been dominated...

The National Museum. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2001... SIR: Many of the contentious issues raised by Keith Windschuttle in "How Not to Run a Museum" (September 2001) will be addressed at a seminar at the National Museum of Australia on 13th and 14th December, and we expect that he will be present...

Dancing alone. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2001... SIR: Alan Ryan (October 2001) has written a welcome rejoinder to my "Twelve Questions for Paul Dibb" (April 2001). He remarks that my own essay "represented a fairly rapid turn-around for the beginning of a debate about Australia's strategic...

The compassion flaunters. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2001... SIR: I had just finished reading your editorial in the October Quadrant, skewering with customary clarity the arrogant pretensions of our self-styled opinion leaders, and picked up the Saturday Australian of 6th October. I was immediately...

Immigration, institutions, harmony and prosperity. (Argument).(public view of Middle Eastern immigrants)
November 1, 2001... THE FAULT LINE between the opinion-making elite d the average citizen has rarely, if ever, turned I into such a wide-open chasm as it did in the wake of the Tampa incident. The popular outcry was spontaneous, pervasive and forceful. The...

Taiwan: thinking outside the Chinese box. (Foreign Affairs).(Australian position on independence of Taiwan)
November 1, 2001... AT PRESENT, in Australian debate about the future of Taiwan, three views dominate discussion. The first is the official policy. It is that there is one China, of which Taiwan is a part, but it is apart. Reunification should occur by peaceful...

Twenty fingers: for A & K.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Together they are playing now Though forty years have passed. Two twelve year olds they are again And still a fraction fast. The duet piece that wowed their mums And quietly charmed their friends Is called...

Scott and Zelda.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... There it is, just after three, the big fat daylight moon rising in its chalky whiteness, a kind of deco balcony where Scott and Zelda, still checked in, with black tie, smiles and gown down a pair of...

Strange equation.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Among the over-sixties now he's noticing the strange equation, standing in the hour for drinks or laughing at a table. The men have either been dismissed (forgivably, he will admit) or wandered off with...

This feminist thing. (Society).(gendered workplace)
November 1, 2001... I WAS ON THE BUS, going to work, when some interesting-looking passengers got on. They were two blokes, flannelette shirts, beanies, jeans, a bit scruffy. With them, they had two children, one a baby and the other a toddler. They negotiated...

The Takata riding ground: after the woodblock print by Ando Hiroshige.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Profiled in a sunny patch of time--two still horsemen streaking past, three samurai archers stripped to the waist for target practice, an imminent military game called Keeping Alert in Times of Peace or Eking Out a...

Towards a cricket history of Australia. (Sport).
November 1, 2001... MANY PEOPLE are familiar with the history of Australian cricket but the cricket history of Australia is yet to be written. Cricket defined the Australian nation even though the game itself by its very nature is profoundly anti-historical. In...

What Columbus saw. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Mango, papaya, cactus, yucca, coconut, banana; sanctuary and succulence, a place to be. Saw no one till he had to see Taino Indians taught in the language of their blood, thirst of fever sweating his men to...

What the Spanish brought. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... All that sea-borne terror, manatees in dream, warm flesh thoughts from the cold, marinated fantasy; wine and thirst and terracotta tiles, ships and wood and impossible distance, men and men and men and hunger, ...

Taino Indian words. (Columbus In La Isabella).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Who named the Taino, Taino? The broad span of the skull, their shaven heads like new-born. Coca. The white of lost innocence and how they shared it from a ritual tray. Tobacco. The deepest brown, brown...

The house of Christopher Columbus. (Columbus In La Isabela.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... It is still a good place to be the house of Christopher Columbus. Built like a church, open to the quiet bay, his hearth an altar; a house to forget in as heat paled the palms, sea lisped forgiveness; all the...

Blood in the trees. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Flamboyan flamboyan flame flowers held at arm's length, flame in sunlight, blood-red. The soil, the soil secretes the blood, blood colonises earth. Trees greener than lust for home, flourishing while we wasted,...

Yam. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Not the smoky oregano of mountain lamb wrapped in straw, baked in a clay pot, coarse salted, washed down with last year's wine. The meat of this island, a pappy confusion on the tongue, filling the mouth with...

First church in the New World. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... The foundations--the blood-red soil of floor, small rectangle of earth: the first Church in the New World. A living tree shedding serenity with shadow of its leaves has rooted beneath the stone, coming up ...

The Spaniard. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Cholera, malaria, his anthem of the place; his arms crossed over his ribs; a Christian dying --Taino skeletons curled like foetuses; chicken wire between him and our gaze; air empty of mourning; the Spanish...

The dead dog. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... "That is Christopher Columbus' dog." A burial casket dug by archaeologists left stranded on the porch, an oval of hard clay, a murmur of bones, of decay, and that is Christopher Columbus' dog. Did he get his share...

White crosses. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... White crosses--when death doesn't ask your name. White crosses--random markers of the rotting embrace between flesh and soil. White crosses--knowing that wherever we walk, we walk on graves. Goose-bumps, rumours in...

Leaving for Spain. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... He'd have to leave the dog. A ship with tobacco, coco, salt fish, maize bread, strips of dried mango, amber, silver, larimar, gold to hold between him and the burning shame. Forgotten, the shape of all he'd longed...

Christopher Columbus returns to Hispaniola. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... It castrates a man to be where he is not. And two years almost too long in limbo to, fight your way back into heaven, onto earth. All that time, while he had drowned in Spain's best wine and glutted on the...

The roof tiles. (Columbus In La Isabela).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Stacked in neat piles as though waiting for Christopher Columbus to return to the once-new world and mend his roof; terracotta tiles, snug against hand-made contours each casting an arc of shadow as though they...

The literary desert in Australian law. (Law).(quoting from literature in judicial decisions)
November 1, 2001... QUOTING POPULAR literature in judicial utterances can be quite dangerous. It is much safer to stick to the classics, to Shakespeare, or other writers long since safely dead. Modern authors may be part of popular culture. They may be less...

Posthumous dialogue concerning certain errors in Michael Ackland's damaged men. (Literature).(Short Story)
November 1, 2001... IF THIS ISN'T the operating theatre of the Sydney Adventist Hospital, it has to be some sort of afterworld. Well, I am damned!" "Not yet. They have taken out your file and the committee is considering your case." "I know that voice....

Roman.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... When I was a girl, a neighbor would bring us dried Chamomile for tea. It grew in her south-facing garden. She'd snip the blossomed heads in the morning, then lay them to dry veiled in old newspapers-- covering all her...

Tove Jansson, 1914-2001.(Obituary)
November 1, 2001... TOVE JANSSON, who died recently in Finland, was probably one of the most successful and loved authors of the twentieth century. Though she is published as a children s writer, her books have millions of adult readers. In her own country the...

The shrine.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Once again, the roadside shrine The makeshift cross The flowers, the poems The celebration that they left Immortal on the night before And two policemen at the door The rumours not quite adding up And...

Reply to a common complaint.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... Mention poetry and you'll find enough opinions to cry down the recent stuff. For those who read and love the art are but a tiny, weathered part within a vast and dissonant convention where also lonely sergeants count...

Tempe railway.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... We cross over into the forest of shades warning lights flickering into the valley of the dead the lines are parallel electric caterpillars of light overhead lit moths and butterflies and I am yoked to some...

Lost worlds. (Argus).(modernizing libraries)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Always in the vanguard of progressive library policy, the Central Public Library in Ghasthurst naturally has no books. When, several years ago, the library's collection was declared irrelevant to an age of electronic information technology, the...

We were wrong. (Argus).(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2001... Mr J. G. Shortcrust, retired accountant and senior organiser (bingo & trivia nights) for the residents' committee of Hernia Hill Retirement Village, Tasmania, wishes to point out in connection with our report last month on new techniques in IVF...

Staying off the map.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Residents of the tiny coastal resort of Port Xenophobe (pop. 254) say they re ready to take the law into their own hands to defend the unspoilt seclusion of their township against an ABC proposal to film a television series there. The series,...

For years of Manning Clark. (History).(historian's multivolume history of Australia)
November 1, 2001... HAVE YOU READ the books?" The conversation turned, as it still so often does, to Manning Clark and especially his six-volume A History of Australia. With that challenge, I had to withdraw a little from a caustic comment and admit that I had...

Towards a healthier federation. (Politics).(federal-state relations)
November 1, 2001... IN THIS CENTENARY YEAR of Federation it is worth reflecting on one of the necessary features of our federal system that is not mentioned in the constitution. Given that the constitution provided for both the continued existence of the colonies...

Tony, meet Cleo: Bell Shakespeare does Antony and Cleopatra. (Theatre).
November 1, 2001... PICTURE THIS: a great captain of the ancient world awakes from an intoxicating night in the arms of Cleopatra--an Egyptian "dish for the gods", a "lass unparallelled"--and finds himself face to face with Glenda Jackson. This isn't a joke: it...

Breakfast at Denny's.(postmodern America)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Planet earth is becoming a single buy on the dip sell on the fatwah. A common civilization. Everything is everywhere and everyone knows everything. Yesterday Sonjia lost her cane on the Moscow. Postmodern. Typified by high technology,...

September 11 and the Hollywood disaster film. (Film).(Critical Essay)
November 1, 2001... FOR MOVIEGOERS the television coverage of the events of 11th September in New York and the ensuing horrors were all too terrifyingly familiar. Just about every detail had been imagined and used in a string of thrillers and disaster films. Even...

The embankment. (Story).(Short Story)
November 1, 2001... At first one or two, then dozens, hundreds of silver-grey flickers catching the headlights and flashing away towards the side of the road. Some of them disappeared off into the darkness, but a lot were right in front of us as we reached them....

Go to the top. (Story).(Short Story)
November 1, 2001... Jean-Paul Sartre said that hell was other people, but for my mother it was bad smells. She campaigned against them, frequently advising me and my elder brother to take a shower, and immediately washed any clothes which she found "a bit wuffy"....

The Solitary Watcher; Rick Amor and his Art. (Books: Poets Of Brush And Pen).
November 1, 2001... The Solitary Watcher; Rick Amor and his Art, by Gary Catalano; Melbourne University Press/Miegunyah, 2001, $89.95. HOW ODD IT IS the way lives touch sometimes briefly and inconsequentially, only to rearrange themselves in a fresh,...

Keith Hancock: The Legacies of an Historian. (Books: Above The Ruck).
November 1, 2001... Keith Hancock: The Legacies of an Historian, edited by D.A. Low; Melbourne University Press, 2001, $32.95. This BOOK contains papers delivered at a "Sir Keith Hancock Symposium" held in the Australian National University in Canberra...

A Fold in the Light. (Books: On The Sea, On The Land).
November 1, 2001... A Fold in the Light, by Alan Gould; Indigo/Ginninderra, 2001, $30. BEING A POET is a difficult vocation at the best of times but especially during this "discouraging era", as Alan Gould describes it, when there is no indication that...

From Here. (Books: On The Sea, On The Land).
November 1, 2001... From Here, by Russell Erwin; Indigo/Ginninderra, 2001, $16. BEING A POET is a difficult vocation at the best of times but especially during this "discouraging era", as Alan Gould describes it, when there is no indication that...

German Opera: From the Beginnings to Wagner. (Books: Tenerous Teutons).
November 1, 2001... German Opera: From the Beginnings to Wagner, by John Warrack; Cambridge University Press, 2001, $150. USING THE PHRASES "German music" and "inferiority complex" within a single sentence appears perverse; but in surveying pre-Wagnerian...

Giotto.(Poem)
November 1, 2001... The morning paper with its In Brief About getting to the bottom After all these years Of the skeleton that they found In the Duomo crypt Said that they could tell Who it was from the bad Posture, the...

Irises at Horikiri. (Books).(Poem)
November 1, 2001... after the woodblock print by Ando Hiroshige It was just so. Inching your way through grass, some sort of tracking game I think it was, and once you fell asleep and they ran home and left you lost and when you woke it...

Continuity.
November 1, 2001... AS I WRITE these words, the date is Monday 1st October 2001; by the time you are reading the humble paragraphs which follow, Christmas will almost have us once more by the throat. For the writer of occasional trifles, the long lead time which...