Quadrant articles from November 2002

Quadrant archives from November 2002

Terrorism, Bali and Iraq. (Editorial).(Quadrant)
November 1, 2002... AFTER THE INITIAL SHOCK and numbness produced by the October 12 atrocity in Bali the response in the Australian community of outrage will develop into anger. This anger will be directed at terrorists wherever they are, and will inevitably...

Poetry live and on the page. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2002... SIR: I am amazed that you should have published such a muddleheaded piece of work as Patrick McCauley's "The Dreadful Orthodoxy" (September 2002). In defending what he sees as an unfairly ignored live poetry scene, McCauley makes an...

Doing what we can. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2002... SIR: Leo Hogan (October 2002) suggests that I would probably disagree that the Australian army should have a capability "to engage in higher-tempo, larger-scale operations" than it current enjoys. I assume that Leo, who was, as I recall, an...

Clausewitz's chameleon: military theory and the future of war. (Defence).(peace)
November 1, 2002... Only the dead have seen the end of war --Plato AS THE WORLD enters the twenty-first century, it appears that we are in the midst of revolutionary trends in the character of international security, with the forces of information...

About drawing. (Art).(the Kedumba Collection Australia)
November 1, 2002... ABOUT DRAWING, there is always a deal of huff and puff. Reactionaries, in fear of alterations to their norm, use it as a whacking stick. The ratbag fringe, so often the "avant-garde", declaim against it, for it limits their scattergun approach...

Four short poems.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... Four Short Poems on my way to bed-- what's left of the evening for the fireflies the dog ready to bark-- tracks in the snow that don't come back tiring heat-- my newspaper story continues on another...

At the height of our time? James McAuley's twenty Quadrants. (Literature).(on Australian literature)(Editorial)
November 1, 2002... THREE POETS and one music critic put in for the job of editor of Quadrant in 1955. It was not yet called Quadrant. But it was to be a quarterly in the tradition of the Quarterly Review or the Edinburgh Review in the nineteenth century and...

Friends and Ancestors.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... FRIENDS AND ANCESTORS Fresh from reading sharp, kind Sydney Smith; another horror heads the midday news, another massacre of innocents. What can I do but turn the set straight off? In 1823 Sydney exploded: "Do...

The Point.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... THE POINT A man is taking photos of himself, first on a seat, then on a rock shelf. My dog runs off to sniff and roll around. A couple yesterday approaching: "Please, whole city, both of us and Opera House", much...

Dispatches from Britain's culture war. (Society).
November 1, 2002... THE STRANGE COMBINATION of permissiveness and Draconianism is evident in Britain's present culture war in all matters from crime control to the running of schools. There does, however, seem to be a consistent and strategic objective of...

Child sexual abuse, real and unreal. (Society).
November 1, 2002... BY DEFINITION abuse is a bad thing, and sexual abuse of the young is particularly loathsome. However, misinformation, deliberate or unintended, about its incidence makes bad situations worse rather than better. Miriam Saphira's 1985 claim that...

After Pain.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... AFTER PAIN 1. Such satisfaction the pain killers give as they begin their killing. 2. The medication-- again I feel the pleasure of feeling nothing. 3. So it's come to this: ...

British fox-hunting, past and present. (Society).(Column)
November 1, 2002... 'Unting is all that's worth living for--all time is lost wot is not spent in 'unting--it is like the hair we breathe--if we have it not we die--it's the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty per cent of...

Australian capitalism 1972-2002: the triumph of liberalism. (Economics).
November 1, 2002... THE 1972 Pelican book Australian Capitalism: Towards a Socialist Critique (edited by John Playford and Douglas Kirsner) represented one of the highlights in the brief history of the Australian New Left. It appeared shortly after the beginning...

Constitutional Preamble.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... CONSTITUTIONAL PREAMBLE We human beings Who have learned to be invaded, Have carried our cultures To this land in our hearts. We offer them to receive The culture of the original inhabitants, And their most...

A harmless addiction. (Medicine).(nitrous oxide addiction)
November 1, 2002... IN HIS ARTICLE "The Dangers of Harm Minimisation (Quadrant, May 2002), Joe Santamaria argues against what is called the Harm Minimisation Policy and argues in support of the Harm Prevention Policy which he and his colleagues espouse. I would...

The decline of coercive sanctimony. (Devine).(political ideologies)
November 1, 2002... THE TIDE is running out on political correctness from the Left. Whether there is a new tide building from the Right is open to question. Mark Latham, Labor's inheritor from Paul Keating of the "vision thing", says there is. But I've long...

The Street of Fabric Shops in the Odemmacho Quarter.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... THE STREET OF FABRIC SHOPS IN THE ODEMMCHO QUARTER after the woodblock print by Ando Hiroshige Nudging midnight two geishas solicit each other home with uneven steps, morning glories past their prime. Dressed in the...

Possessed.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... POSSESSED I witnessed our world shrink in kaleidoscopic frenzy, the cacophony of voices each struggling to be heard above the rest. My tongue became wood. A small, smooth shaving that grew and grew into a...

Paint the Parrot.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... PAINT THE PARROT Paint the parrot Pluck the duck Rub the rooster Park the truck Wet the washing Loot the fruit Bag the magpie Toot the ute Damp the dingles Ditch the dog Burn the...

The Indian or Common Mynah.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... THE INDIAN OR COMMON MYNAH Strutting through our years and seasons he's steadily become all hide. Small but tough, he takes no shit and shoves the hedgerow fry aside. Dusted like a cappuccino, briskly yellow in...

Stop whispering. (History).(Crossfire: An Australian Reconnaissance Unit in Vietnam)(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... IN OCTOBER 1966, the first Australian Reconnaissance Platoon was formed in Vietnam. The recce men were basically grunts, explains Robert Kearney in his recent book with Peter Haran, Crossfire, "infantrymen who grunted and whinged everywhere...

Infidelity.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... INFIDELITY I stood at the window and watched you pace the garden path uneasily. You walked like a stranger in the house emotionally stateless, in transition. You drifted further from me on a slow tide, with...

The mirror of honour and love: a woman's view of chivalry. (History).(Column)
November 1, 2002... CHIVALRY. Isn't that a bloke's thing? Isn't it to do with being a man-at-arms, with strapping on armour and sallying forth into the wildwood on your horse, your lady's token on your arm, to right wrongs and do great deeds? Isn't the only role...

Mosquito Meditations.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... MOSQUITO MEDITATIONS I Koan i A mosquito koan-- What is the point of the sound What is the point of the sound ii I just enlightened a mosquito to the meaning of a famed Zen koan!...

The Servile State revisited. (Philosophy & Ideas).(Critical Essay)
November 1, 2002... DOES HILAIRE BELLOC'S The Servile State, published in 1912, owe its fame more to its catchy title than to its argument? Is it, in this respect, like other well remembered but unread and misunderstood books such as Julien Benda's The Treason of...

At Seal Rocks.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... AT SEAL ROCKS for Ruth It's hardly new but even so you listen to the waves all night going back two hundred years and so another forty thousand, the campfires on the beach down there or up here in the scrub....

Rhapsody No. 1.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... RHAPSODY NO. 1 The powerlines are once more a stave across the parchment of the mist. Sparrows in their itchy dozens attempt cadenzas dreamed by Liszt.

October along the Mississippi. (First Person).(Column)
November 1, 2002... IT'S 7 A.M. and chilly outside my motel in New Orleans. The Maze Prison I call it. Identical rooms surround a central enclosed atrium--everything a watermelon pink. The sun hits the tops of buildings and slides down into a New Orleans...

Reporting the Papuan campaign. (Film).(Papuan battles of 1942-43)
November 1, 2002... IN COMMEMORATING the Papuan battles of 1942-43, there is a stark choice. We can settle for a sentimental legend about the Kokoda Track where everyone is a hero and noble Australian soldiers aided by loyal Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels turn back a vicious...

Ninety percent of what happens in the world.(Poem)
November 1, 2002... Ninety percent of what happens in the world does not yet have words to describe it So, it is not named. It is the great unnamed. This is the stuff which makes Art. Art is the process of naming the unnamed. Good...

The Internet baby.(Short Story)
November 1, 2002... The city of Medan, in Sumatra, is noisy and polluted. On Monday morning Julie, Marco and Ben were in the orphanage anteroom sharp at eleven, complete with carry-cot, nappies and bottle. After waiting anxiously for twenty minutes they were...

The big old oak.(Short Story)
November 1, 2002... I went to the Oak Lawn yesterday afternoon and lay on the pink linen tablecloth with my head on a cushion I had brought from the house. It was a magnificent day, a full summer day. There was a clear sky and it was hot. I chose a spot near...

A losing argument.(How to Argue with an Economist: Reopening Political Debate in Australia)(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... How to Argue with an Economist: Reopening Political Debate in Australia, by Lindy Edwards; Cambridge University Press, 2002, $27.95. ANTI-ECONOMIC-RATIONALIST books are now a small genre, and Lindy Edwards' adds to the ten or so published...

Evidence of decline.(The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal)(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal, by James Franklin; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, $67. AS ROGER KIMBALL says in his review of this wonderful book in the Wall Street Journal, "This is not a book for...

The way wa lives now.(Dirt Music)(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... Dirt Music, by Tim Winton; Picador, 2001, $30. THE WAY WE LIVE Now, Trollope's panoramic satirical novel about contemporary English society, appeared in 1875. In its main diagnostic intention it belongs to the tradition of the...

Mind, related to "stone".(Poem)
November 1, 2002... MIND, RELATED TO "STONE" In those moments in dreams when we know so much we wake-- the mind is a stone warmed by the sun.

Love, related to "ants".(Poem)
November 1, 2002... LOVE, RELATED TO "ANTS" Eating ants is one way to itch, away from your lover another.

Life, related to "resurrection.".(Poem)
November 1, 2002... LIFE, RELATED TO "RESURRECTION" You gather your life around you until your life collapses then begins another life.

"A what, sir?" (Ryan).(on cultural trends, handkerchiefs, and sherry)(Column)
November 1, 2002... OUR TASTES greatly alter," pronounced Doctor Johnson. "The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore." We see this in ourselves when, after half a lifetime of drinking our tea with...