Quadrant articles from November 2007

Quadrant archives from November 2007

The immorality of Christian social policy.(Editorial)(Editorial)
November 1, 2007... JUST AS RELIGIOUS FAITH is, while perfectly defensible in itself, useless as a guide to the physical make-up of the universe or the biological descent of man, so too its pretensions to be useful as a guide to social policy must be questioned....

The sociobiologists.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR: The Quadrant debate over sociobiology is becoming a bit like the Iraq War. I am reluctant to prolong the business, but feel that I ought to respond briefly to James Guest (October 2007). First, though, I need to thank him for giving my...

The doctor shortage.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR: Recent events at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital and their repercussions demonstrate how the Coalition's Health Manpower ("Workforce") chickens have come home to roost. It was under John Howard's leadership in 1996 that Michael...

Dawkins and religion.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR. It is barely possible that Professor Dawkins does not read Quadrant and hence has not seen the rebuttal of his claims against religion by Hal Colebatch in the October issue. Had he done so he might have pointed out that the depredations of...

The Spanish civil war.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR. I write to support the views of Hal Colebatch in his splendid review of W.H. Carroll's The Last Crusade: Spain 1936 (September 2007). May I draw attention to the following additional facts: 1. The current leftist myth that Franco's...

Biblical interpretation.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR: David Hodgson (Letters, September 2007) has not managed to identify the central point of those letters challenging his criticism of the morality on display in some Bible stories. Reasoned criticism necessarily entails an accurate...

Beyond left and right.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR: In his address to the Quadrant dinner (October 2007), Tom Switzer points to examples within the Australian economy, judiciary and media that prove "the tide is turning in Australia's culture wars", and with a notable degree of pride. ...

Correction.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2007... Robert Murray points out that the number of Aborigines in Queensland in 1861 was a minimum of 60,000, not 16,000 as stated on page 22 of his article in the October issue.

The loaded dog: on objectivity in the biological sciences and the curious case of the dingo.(Environment)
November 1, 2007... IT IS IRONICAL THAT, beginning with John Locke (1632-1704), the empiricist attempt to make philosophy more "scientific should have produced the exact opposite effect. Today, modern philosophy appears to be wandering around in the foetid swamps...

Coogee.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... Coogee The sloping esplanade bends round the beach, Flanked by a row of golden globes on poles Which seem to leach All other colours out of nine o'clock's Submission to the ordinance of dark. Against what must be...

Is China's "rise" all it seems?(Asia)(Country overview)
November 1, 2007... CHINA'S RISE is one of the more exciting political and economic stories today. It has had explosive economic growth for two decades. Its glittering cities, like Shanghai, dazzle visitors and will cast China's spell over many more during the...

Growing up under Mussolini.(History)(interview with John Maneschi)(Interview)
November 1, 2007... JOHN MANESCHI'S Italian father and Australian mother met and married in Europe. The Depression brought them back to Milan, where John was born in 1932. He was an engineer in Australia and abroad. He lives in retirement at Mosman, Sydney, where...

Writers' Workshop.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... WRITERS' WORKSHOP 1 by 1 round the horseshoe ... and why do you want to write? l by l until I'm sleep deprived... new baby... eyes shut tight tears spill ... just found out I'm ill ...

Bank Rolls ...(Poem)
November 1, 2007... Banks Rolls... Between conifers and pines a lawn space falls to the fiat. Metres from my feet two girls with pony tails and lemonade eyes lie head to head, arms and legs outstretched, fingertips touching. Ready, set...

In Love with Hedgerows and Meadows.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... IN LOVE WITH HEDGEROWS AND MEADOWS I wear something long and complex. Queen Anne's lace touches me as I walk by. I am of royal descent, part tree, part hedgerow I embrace the meadow--my green soft love stuffed full of...

That Ride on the Moors.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... THAT RIDE ON THE MOORS I last rode you twenty years ago your dark flanks outrageously black flying like velvet over the long wild grass and the soft thudded sound of your hooves I think of the way you cocked back...

From Franco to freedom: reflections on getting reacquainted with Spain.(Europe)
November 1, 2007... IN THIS YEAR'S northern spring, I indulged myself in the pleasure of returning for a while to Spain, where I had squandered many marvellous months of my youth in the early 1960s. That was when Franco Spain had emerged from the traumas of the...

Working for the Soviets.(First Person)(business relations)
November 1, 2007... IN LONDON MY FIRST JOB after arriving broke in July 1963 was as a plongeur, washing up in a Bayswater pub. At this point in life it seemed to me that I would have far better trained as a plumber or electrician, useful and portable skills, than...

A conscript in the Kara Kum (Part Two).
November 1, 2007... MIDWIFE IN A YURT I WAS ONE of the very few Europeans able to speak some of the local words. It got me into a totally unforeseen situation. We were in the midst of the desert, building terraces for the rice fields. I was a team member of...

Metaphysical Realities of a Headache.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... METAPHYSICAL REALITIES OF A HEADACHE 1 Affliction: some pulsing rhythm of the dark star loaded with dreams and demons causes your head to hang awkwardly like a snapped stem unable to hold the weight...

A fairly indignant letter to the editor.(Devine)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... SIR: Your editorial (Quadrant, October) commendably castigated journalists for their indifference to and negligent coverage of national security matters and their hostile yapping at authorities responsible for investigating Dr Mohamed Haneef,...

The Knot.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... THE KNOT He holds the strands but still can't tie the knot. The ends slip in the aspect of her eyes, The colour of a name he once forgot, The pattern of the swifts, that is the sky's. The ends slip in the aspect of...

Chinese Curses.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... CHINESE CURSES May you live in interesting times The Ferris wheel is stalled. They said meet here. Perched on the back of a pantechnicon Two dwarfs in play at cards and drinking beer Nod in acknowledgement....

Making it harder to be old.(aging)
November 1, 2007... AS SOMEONE OLD ENOUGH to be Frank Devine's aunt, I would like to report on a few extra years' experience of the handicaps of old age ("On Being Older", September 2007). A growing public scandal is the peculiar trend to make it harder for the...

Faith, reason and dialogue: the Regensburg address, one year on.(Religion)
November 1, 2007... ONE YEAR AGO, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture at the University of Regensburg, Germany. The lecture was hailed by some as epoch-making and one of the great speeches of our time, but from others it provoked angry reactions: Islamic groups...

Militant Islam and the Qur'an.
November 1, 2007... ISLAM AND ISLAMISM ONE OF THE MAIN characteristics of the Islamist approach to Islam is to focus on the time of revelation and on the teachings and practice of the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs as the only source of guidance for the modern...

Roman Fever.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... ROMAN FEVER There were still cases of malaria in the 30s in the marshland to the south of Rome. Daisy Miller is not buried in the English Cemetery. But Keats has a grave and an empty sepulchre. I am a signora,...

The camaraderie of not caring: misreading Henry Lawson.(Literature)
November 1, 2007... THE LEGEND OF Henry Lawson which arose after his death was that of a man who had been there at the birth of the nation in the great days of the Bulletin, and who had partly created it himself. It was Lawson the depicter of rabble-rousing...

"The great catastrophe to our letters"? T.S. Eliot, his influence, and its American critique.
November 1, 2007... THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS presuppose a number of commonplaces: that T.S. Eliot is a poet of the first rank; that his influence on culture, the academy and criticism is, for better or worse, extensive; that he was an intellectual of integrity and a...

Collective Epitaph.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... COLLECTIVE EPITAPH At nightfall in the early 1950s in small apartments in Manhattan before most people had TV couples in their 30s and their 40s most of them dead by now mixed cocktails for each other and...

Lumiere Documentary Film 1899.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... LUMIERE DOCUMENTARY FILM 1899 Cutting cane stick by stick The overseer looks and Checks. A jumbuck crashes Through the gates, the farmer stooks the grain. One stands like an alien in this moment. In time ...

Who wrote Ten Canoes?(Film)(David Gulpilil)
November 1, 2007... FROM THE ADMIRABLE documentation available on the making of Ten Canoes (1) we know that the film is the brainchild of a celebrated Aboriginal actor intent on honouring his homeland and an innovative Dutch/Australian film-maker mindful of...

Rosebery, Tasmania.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... ROSEBERY, TASMANIA My brother and I set a fire Beneath our parents' bedroom floor, But being damp the wood just smoked And gave him time for second thoughts And telling tales. Locked up alone, To wait for...

The Texture of Our Flesh and Souls.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... THE TEXTURE OF OUR FLESH AND SOULS The texture of our flesh and souls, Our nitty-gritty, warp and woof Imposed upon and foreign to The natural fabric of the world, We don't fit in, and are but non- Related...

As we are supposed to like it.(As You Like It, The Brave One)(Movie review)
November 1, 2007... NO SOONER WAS I writing last month about alternative forms of exhibition than a new one appears---employed by Kenneth Branagh no less. After the treatment by distributors of his splendidly innovative Love's Labour's Lost, this time he hasn't...

The Lark Ascending.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... THE LARK ASCENDING At each day's end I listen to The Lark Ascending: A cello bow across the strings expresses fluttering rising wings. At some unknown point I cease to hear as transcendental night draws near....

Pie Apocalypse.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... PIE APOCALYPSE In Stanmore where the trains speed by I can sit and eat a pie And wonder if the end is nigh. And at the juicy gravy bit I drool, lick my lips And ponder the apocalypse.

Hollywood.(Short story)
November 1, 2007... "Not bad," Hartley murmured to himself. "I must say, not bad at all." His cream linen suit was enjoying its first outing since last summer, and it hung with crumpled elegance on his slim frame. Old but serviceable. Bit like me, Hartley...

Some houses in Merrimba.(Short story)
November 1, 2007... Some houses in Merrimba seem to be unlucky houses. Perhaps I should say that they seem to shape the lives of their inhabitants. For instance, there is the big house in our road. It has always been called Merrimba House. New owners come and...

In the Alzheimer's Unit.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... IN THE ALZHEIMER'S UNIT A tiny woman in a blue track-suit-- corn-flower blue, the color of her eyes-- mistook me for her father, I suppose, and said, "Can I go swimming?" "Of course", I said. "Up to my knees?"...

The fanatical Bruce Beresford: celluloid heroes.(Books)(Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to Do This: True Stories from a Life in the Screen Trade)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to Do This: True Stories from a Life in the Screen Trade, by Bruce Beresford; HarperCollins, 2007, $39.99. THROW AWAY your textbooks on film theory. Shred your reports from the Film Squad of the Arts Police....

Jews as real people.(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation, by Paul Kriwaczek; Phoenix, 2006, $26.95. OVER CENTURIES "the Jews" have been portrayed as dodgy and difficult, if not sinister; as a "marvellous people" of extraordinary...

The mystical in the mundane.(The Light River)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... The Light River, by Hal Colebatch; Connor Court Publishing, 2007, $22.95. HAL COLEBATCH'S seventh collection of poetry, The Light River, is his most impressive yet, and confirms his position as one of Australia's strongest and most...

Austen and autism.(So Odd a Mixture: Along the Autistic Spectrum in Pride and Prejudice)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... So Odd a Mixture." Along the Autistic Spectrum in Pride and Prejudice, by Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer; Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007, $34.95. IN THE AUTUMN of 2006 I attended a lecture in Sydney, by a Canadian speech pathologist, Phyllis...

Fruit Stand, State Road 301, Waldo, Florida.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... FRUIT STAND, STATE ROAD 301, WALDO, FLORIDA I'm Tard says the sign No Bidness is what it means and we keep driving north through these failing crops on the untranquil shelf of our personal continent and the dust lies...

A loose Australian Canon.(education )
November 1, 2007... "BY THE WATERS of Babylon we sat down and wept." Yes, and I've got a pretty good idea of how they felt. Any civilised person today seated beside the Derrida-desert of what used to be our system of secondary education can only suffer the same...