Quadrant articles from October 2005

Quadrant archives from October 2005

Journalism and the Liberal Party.(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... THE DESTRUCTION of the New South Wales Liberal leader, John Brogden, has been an instructive demonstration of the harmful influence of journalism in modern politics. It has to be said from the very beginning that of course Brogden himself is...

Our shrinking defences.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... SIR: Tony Abbott's contribution (September 2005) to the national security debate is almost unique in that a senior minister who is not a member of the National Security Committee of cabinet has made a useful contribution to a topic beyond his...

Holt, the reforming PM.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... SIR: The article "Harold Holt and the Beautiful People" by Max Teichmann (September 2005) contains two glaring misquotations from my new book The Life and Death of Harold Holt. First, I did not describe Harold Holt as "the real...

Curriculum battles.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... SIR: It is always good to read a review of what you have written and to know that, at least, your book has been read. At the same time, as the author, there is a natural desire to want to correct misunderstandings and misinterpretations. ...

The pandemic threat.(Health)
October 1, 2005... TALK OF PLAGUES in these gleaming modern days drags the mind back in time to the pustules, exorcisms and corpse pits of the Dark Ages. Unfortunately, the issue of global pandemics is very much one of the future; it could even turn out to be the...

The problem with sociology: morality, anti-biology and perspectivism.(Universities)
October 1, 2005... SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY amiss with sociology. It is more than a century and a half since the most influential modern variants of sociology began to be formulated, starting with Marx's Communist Manifesto. Sociology came into universities about a...

A plea on behalf of Eros.(Australia)
October 1, 2005... EUROPEAN COLONISATION, an enormity summarised by Jared Diamond as Guns, Germs and Steel, was bound to have an exceptionally harsh effect on Stone Age hunter-gatherers such as the Canadian Innu and the Australian Aborigine. Indeed, there has...

Mao and the Australian Maoists.(History)(Mao Tse-tung)
October 1, 2005... IN DECEMBER 1993, to mark the centenary of the birth of Mao Tse-tung, the Melbourne Age commissioned an opinion piece from Albert Langer, who as a student activist in the 1960s had been the best-known public face of Maoism in Australia. Around...

From the Lakes.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... FROM THE LAKES to my mother An hour beyond where you are tethered to your illness, your halter monitor taunting you with heights you'd love to climb, your granddaughters are free to roam, though one prefers the dark...

Telling the Kokoda story.
October 1, 2005... WHEN PETER BRUNE and I began researching Kokoda in the 1980s for his Those Ragged Bloody Heroes and my War Cameraman." The Story of Damien Parer, apart from reminiscences and battalion histories there were only two major works on the campaign...

The legacy of Harold Holt.(Biography)
October 1, 2005... I CLEARLY REMEMBER December 17, 1967--the day Harold Holt disappeared in the surf off Portsea. It is my first clear memory of a political event. I was ten years old. I was watching television in our family home. Regular programming was...

Escape over the Pyrenees.(First Person)
October 1, 2005... FROM ALL SIDES, I was pressed hard to set a date for our departure; I knew I had to do it, yet I was not yet prepared to abandon a country to which I had come by my own free will, where I had lived for many years, where I felt at home and had...

On the mat and up the wall.
October 1, 2005... I ARRIVED IN AUSTRALIA on July 19, 1970, knowing exactly no one, but with a premonition (amply justified) that it would have to be preferable to postindustrial Scotland, whence I had fled. Between that date and November 2002, I had participated...

High and Deep.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... HIGH AND DEEP Phil, can we drive over the High Level? For sure I reply and nose the truck to our daily ritual. The sun bums main street, steam rises from puddles of the recent deluge. The 4WD ahead retains a red...

The Pinnacles.(Nambung National Park)(Poem)
October 1, 2005... THE PINNACLES (Nambung National Park) They stand on golden sand but are not grand. Like nudes they're better in pictures. Curiosities dumb freaks Rorschach shapes ...

Candide's way.(world past, present- better or worse)(Column)
October 1, 2005... SUDDENLY THE REALISATION has been thrust on me that I have reached the age when I am free--indeed, virtually obliged--to complain about the flaws and failures of present times (compared with the golden days of yore). My instinct is to resist...

No soup thanks.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... No SOUP THANKS (A poem for two narrators, about early stage Parkinson's Disease) Maybe I could pretend do you know that you're shaking? Until nearer the end do you know your head's shaking? We could keep up the...

James Fairfax and Helen Garner.([begin strikethrough]Dis[end strikethrough]Agreeable Portraits)(Biography)
October 1, 2005... JAMES OSWALD FAIRFAX owns many habitations. He has a country property at Bowral (Retford Park), a city house in Woollahra, a beach house at Bilgola, country estate in Dorset: and he hires a chateau in France and a meditation hut in Japan. In...

A Red Rubber Ball.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... I'm in the palm of a great hand. It squeezes me to exercise its fingers. This gets the meanness out and strangles my cries. Afterwards, I feel light and bounce and roll.

China's military ambitions.(Asia)
October 1, 2005... THE ENERGY RELEASED in China, little more than a decade ago, by Deng Xiaoping's "socialism with Chinese characteristics", has exploded with the velocity, force and unpredictability of a galactic accident. There are still backward, poor Chinese...

Let the beaten be eaten.(Asia)
October 1, 2005... DO YOU KNOW the haka? It's a cannibal war dance to terrify the enemy you plan to kill and eat. A terpsichorean aperitif, if you will. Originally something for Maoris only, it is now performed indiscriminately by New Zealanders of every kind,...

Justice Callinan on the Tasmanian Dam Case.(Law)(Ian Callinan)
October 1, 2005... SIR JOHN LATHAM would have been disappointed at the lack of logic, the flawed analysis and the uninformed comment in Justice Ian Callinan's Latham Lecture ("International Law and Australian Sovereignty", July-August 2005). The following remarks...

The good old cause: John Milton's Areopagitica revisited.(Literature)
October 1, 2005... Idle expens was spar 'd, for guests were none, No drunken riot, verses fescennine, Or antic dancing marr 'd the awful day. In conscious rectitude the Bridegroom smil 'd Upon his Consort with superior love, And pass 'd the hours til night in...

The trail of the false Petronius.(Literature)
October 1, 2005... IN APRIL I was asked to open the discussion of a postgraduate student's paper at a seminar of the School of Education, University of Newcastle. The doctoral candidate was presenting a proposal for a study of school-based management in New South...

Persistent.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... PERSISTENT Help me out of this hole Dear God Help me out of this hole Help me out of this hole Dear God I am afraid, I am alone Help me out of this hole Please God--I am scared Help me out of...

Obsession.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... OBSESSION I have this really hot ex Who always wants me back Who is famous, in the movies, is always on TV Who gets exuberant with all of my friends Who is at all the parties Who always wants me back ...

Authenticity and re-enactment.(Film)(movies based history)
October 1, 2005... ACCORDING TO THE Film Australia website, the federal government has granted them $8.5 million to make history films. Their first response was to import the producer from the BBC responsible for Simon Schama's History of Britain series....

The Sparrows at Brunetti's.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... THE SPARROWS AT BRUNETTI'S The sparrows at Brunetti's define the word "alert", perching on vacated chairs, pesky, preened and pert. The remnants they have cornered have fine Italian names. Before a blonde...

The Last Wave.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... THE LAST WAVE 1990, the final mob of mates guys who went to World War One were hitting the wards and dying they were all high nineties but had enlisted at 15, 16. Norm who dreamt of bombing Frankston ...

Mary's decision.(Story)(Short Story)
October 1, 2005... After my doctor's appointment, Nanna's house was the last place I wanted to go. It was Tuesday, afternoon, though, and she was expecting me. Nanna! It s me, I called, opening the door with my key. The sound of the TV at high volume and the...

A contingent triumph.(The (Strange, Recent but Understandable) Triumph of Liberalism in Australia)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The (Strange, Recent but Understandable) Triumph of Liberalism in Australia, by Bob Catley; Macleay Press, 2005, $34.95. THE ROLE OF LIBERALISM in Australian politics has long been a vexed issue and a puzzle to those who study it. It is odd...

A novelist of honour.(Morris West: Literary Maverick)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Morris West." Literary Maverick, by Maryanne Confoy; John Wiley, 2005, $29.95. THE AUTHOR of thirty books with sales in excess of 60 million copies, Morris West was undoubtedly the most successful Australian novelist. And yet the...

An unsatisfactory life.(The Life and Death of Harold Holt)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Life and Death of Harold Holt, by Tom Frame; Allen & Unwin, 2005, $35. ANOTHER GAP on the shelf of prime ministerial biography has been filled with the recent publication of the first serious biography of Harold Holt. Unlike the...

Ep. 1.16. (The Jaundiced Excludee).(Poem)
October 1, 2005... EP. 1. 16. (THE JAUNDICED EXCLUDEE) From the Latin of Martial Some good, many indifferent, most crook; i.e., yr/average book.

Sailors and gentlemen.(A Merciful Journey, by Marsden Hordern)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... A Merciful Journey, by Marsden Hordern; Miegunyah, 2005, $49.95. THE EXPERIENCE of many Royal Australian Navy men in the Second World War was to serve with scanty training and in poorly-charted waters in a makeshift fleet, covering a huge...

Dividing the word.(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, by Nicholas Ostler; HarperCollins, 2005, $75. FEW THINGS BOGGLE the mind more than the age of the earth--perhaps five billion years--and the human race--perhaps 100,000 years--and the...

National treasures.(Hell and After : Four Early English Language Poets of Australia)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Hell and After: Four Early English-Language Poets of Australia, edited by Les Murray; Fyfield Books, 2005, about $35. JUST OVER ten years ago Les Murray brought out Fivefathers, a selection of the work of Kenneth Slessor, Roland Robinson,...

My mother's second husband.(Poem)
October 1, 2005... My mother sits enveloped in a green chair. She's puzzling over something new. How many times have I been married? she asks. Only once Mum, I say. Unless there's something you haven't told us. She gives me that look,...

Pooh to you.(Ryan)(Christopher Robin Milne, the creator of Winnie The Pooh)
October 1, 2005... As I SAT DOWN on Sunday August 21, intending to write a piece (on a wholly different subject) for Quadrant's October issue, I chanced to notice that the date was the anniversary of the birth (in 1920) of Christopher Robin; yes, that Christopher...