Quadrant articles from October 2007

Quadrant archives from October 2007

The future of the unions.(Editorial)( Australian Labor Party)
October 1, 2007... ONE OF THE FEW crucial issues of the coming federal election must be what the outcome will mean for the future of the union movement. Related to this is the future of the Australian Labor Party. For years now the unions have been in decline...

Maritime strategy.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... SIR: Paul Monk's critique (September 2007) of Hugh White's appeal to the ancient memory of Themistocles is devastating in itself. In a longer piece, however, he might have turned from a critique of White's ignorance of classical history to the...

The cold war and the high court.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... SIR: The contention in your editorial "Liberty, the Media and National Security" (September 2007), that it is "quite likely" that the High Court of Australia would have held that the Communist Party Dissolution Act 1950 was a valid exercise of...

The gabardine swine.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... SIR: The term "Gadarene swine" caught my eye. Frank Devine used that epithet in essaying the distinguished English historian, the late Professor A.J.P. Taylor (September 2007). This sobriquet should not be confused with "Gabardine swine". I...

The rip of life.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... SIR: In your July-August editorial you describe a God who is a cruel, self-obsessed despot who rules by terror; and you reject such a God. Who wouldn't? Later on you say, "science can produce evidence of having some real correspondence...

Correction.(Correction notice)
October 1, 2007... In Frank Devine's column in the September issue, A.J.P. Taylor was given as a fellow of Magdalene College (which is in Cambridge). He was, in fact, a fellow of Magdalen College (Oxford). The error was caused by subeditorial confusion, not Frank...

Conservatives are no longer losing the culture wars.(Politics)
October 1, 2007... A conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" --William F. Buckley Jr, 1955 THANKS FOR YOUR warm welcome. And thank you Frank Devine for your wonderful introduction. Frank, like so many people in this room...

Post-Iraq and Australia's arc.(Defence)(arc of instability )
October 1, 2007... It is extremely important to us as Australians that we appreciate that we cannot afford to have failing states in our region. The so-called arc of instability basically goes from East Timor through to the Southwest Pacific states. ...

A dispossession primer.(History)
October 1, 2007... HARDLY A DAY goes by without a reference somewhere in public discourse to Aboriginal "dispossession", so it seems time to attempt a summary--a primer--of what actually happened. It is not intended to be the last word, and criticism is invited....

The Darwin legend.(Science)
October 1, 2007... THE YEAR 2009 marks the bicentenary of two great men, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Both were born on February 12. Both Were inquisitive. Both opposed slavery. Both were evolutionists. And both became social icons. Inscribed over the...

Brief Sketches of Members of the Kelly Gang.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... BRIEF SKETCHES OF MEMBERS OF THE KELLY GANG Joe Byrne: balladeer, ladies' man, spoke Cantonese (he needed opium from the Chinese), could hit a penny tossed into the air with a rifle shot, Ned's trusted...

Sociobiological hobgoblins.(Science)(A Loose Canon)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... A LOOSE CANON, the title of his latest book, describes very well the principles on which Brian Coman builds his attack on sociobiologists ("The Origin of the Specious", September 2007). As to truth, fact and scientific method, the traditional...

Rain Event in the Whispering Country.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... RAIN EVENT IN THE WHISPERING COUNTRY I The black cattle congregate to blink at grapefruit splendour, that gold satellite hanging over them. Incomprehensible. The Moon--woman-steeped, bringer of blood, the mother...

Aspirational nationalism or opportunistic federalism?(The Constitution)
October 1, 2007... "ASPIRATIONAL NATIONALISM" appears to be a slogan in search of a meaning. To what do we aspire? Do we aspire to be a nation, to be nationalistic, or to nationalise the states? The context in which the Prime Minister coined the phrase suggests...

Some thoughts on the Dawkins paradise.(Religion)(Richard Dawkins )
October 1, 2007... SINCE SHORTLY AFTER my religious boarding school failed, despite what then appeared to me to be its chaplain's and principal's best efforts, to convert me to atheism, I have been looking, like some Bravo swaggering down the Rialto, for some...

What the Water Gave Me.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME after Frida Kahlo This is how it will be at the end--me lying in my bath while the waters break, my skin glistening with amnion, streaks of starlight. And the waters will keep on...

Kalle Metro Graveyard.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... KALLE METRO GRAVEYARD Someone snuck in a cemetery. A break in the line of sandstone apartments like a tone blip in the city plan. Surrounded on all three sides by the high-rise living--the whole yard the size of a...

Zachary and the Angel.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... ZACHARY AND THE ANGEL When Zachary came to stay and smashed the terracotta angel on a stone and ran and hid, being only three, my grandmother opened her eyes again and smiled and drew me back through years of sun ...

Some reflections on Rupert Murdoch.(Devine)(Biography)
October 1, 2007... IT WILL TAKE five to ten years for Rupert Murdoch to make and leave his mark on his new acquisition, the Wall Street Journal--that is, to have it supplant the New York Times as the world's most influential English-language newspaper. Does...

Brooke Astor: (1902-2007).(Tribute)(Biography)
October 1, 2007... BROOKE ASTOR, the heiress to the oldest fortune in America, was also, rather suitably, one of its greatest philanthropists. The sums were not vast in twenty-first-century terms--she despatched something like US$195 million over thirty-seven...

A conscript in the Kara Kum: (Part One).(First Person)
October 1, 2007... ALL ABOARD FOR CHARDZHOU THE OOMPAH-OOPAH of the military band, lined up on the platform at Odessa next to the first carriage of a long and empty military train, enlivened the gloom of the families. It was May 1968, and they had come to...

Four Haiku.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... FOUR HAIKU the bus speeds up--no one else goes to the last stop anyone's guess--the stray dog's name cold windy autumn--only roots hold her hair previous civilization--an arm...

The "self and other" register.(First Person)
October 1, 2007... TWO NIGHTS AGO, in those small hours good for self-interrogation, I went through the inventory of my acquaintance and tried to assess the quality of my attention to their otherness in each case. As I did so, in the back of my mind there was an...

Border Country.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... BORDER COUNTRY Winter bleaches bright These borderline days Here, Spain and Portugal end or begin And within, a frontier notion A crossing back if not re-start The heart's foot wary. Hooted nights here...

The Looking Glass.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... THE LOOKING GLASS It's neither here nor there the way this scalloped mirror clones a past, the silver seeping black as the slipped retina of a closing view or Arp soup lapping the trapped room's plague of days....

Two hands blessing.(Society)
October 1, 2007... NOEL PEARSON recognises that Aboriginal politics found its voice over the past thirty years or so through a left-wing alliance, but is now unable to find a comfortable ally amongst the "stifling orthodoxies" of the "tribalism of Australian...

Without Hope.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... WITHOUT HOPE after Frida Kahlo A funnel has been shoved into my mouth through which I am force-fed the sky. I have eaten thunderheads, slaughtered angels. And now they are mashing up the stars into baby gruel. ...

My Nurse and I.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... MY NURSE AND I after Frida Kahlo That night, even the stars oozed milk for me. I drank lava, myths, dresses, The more I suckled, the smaller I grew. My nurse was Mexico-- one breast was Popo crater, the...

Chekhov's tears.(Literature)(Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard)
October 1, 2007... DON'T GO to the theatre. Don't even go out. Just find a chair, stop the music, and read Chekhov. For some reason he's better on the page than on the stage--probably because the Russian playwright was greatly gifted, while most directors and...

Arromanches.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... ARROMANCHES The D-Day Museum, Sword Beach No suffering's remembered here, No graves, no fallen No whiff of smoke or sweat or fear No bugles calling. The only red in the low-tide water Is rusting mulberries;...

Finding the ways.(Film)(Amazing Grace)(Movie review)
October 1, 2007... AMAZING GRACE is an elegantly structured biopic of the old school--up there with The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola, although in many ways much better. It portrays twenty years in the life of the anti-slavery campaigner...

Red Cedar.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... RED CEDAR a bastardised mahogany and almost as good it could be polished to a classic coffin finish cured and easily worked what a shock to see in a native the lure of the boardroom the dark rich tones of...

Windermere: love at second sight.(Story)(Short story)
October 1, 2007... It was nearly 6 p.m.: the house was bathed in the comforting, precocious darkness of July, that velvety, humid, maternal darkness which she had come to anticipate with delight. Little Lucy Ming's evening practice had begun. Tonight, she was...

The test.(Story)(Short story)
October 1, 2007... A teenage boy sat by the merry-go-round in the city square. He wore a black beanie pulled down to his brow and the collar of his trench coat touched his cheeks like mothering hands. He concealed a cigarette in his cupped palm and as he lowered...

Sail.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... SAIL Firm wind flirts from cupping like a breast spilled in laughter and the man tilling the long blue field small as a comma from here slumps and loses way He adjusts old geometry strain is remasted ...

The first Cardinal: the Irish in Australia.(Prince of the Church: Patrick Francis Moran, 1830-1911)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... IT WAS INEVITABLE that a biography of Patrick Francis Moran should run into some turbulence during take-off. Until now there has been no full Life of Cardinal Moran. There were important essays by A.E. Cahill, Patrick O'Farrell and other...

A world of complications.(The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, by Roger Penrose; Vintage Books, 2006, $49,95. THERE ARE MANY great mysteries in life, and one of them is why people without a trace of music in their souls go to concerts....

On the long uphill track.(Lands of Shame: Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander "Homelands" in Transition)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... Lands of Shame: Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander "Homelands" in Transition, by Helen Hughes; Centre for Independent Studies, 2007, $38. HELEN HUGHES' WRITING on Aboriginal policy has been extremely influential. It is reflected in...

Cabbage patch capers.(150 Years of Spring Street: Victorian Government 1850s to 21st Century)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... CABBAGE PATCH CAPERS 150 Years of Spring Street: Victorian Government 1850s to 21st Century, by Robert Murray; Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2007, $34.95. THIS BOOK on the state government of Victoria was launched by Premier Bracks'...

The doctor and the historian.(Europe's Physician: The Various Life of Sir Theodore de Mayerne)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... THE DOCTOR AND THE HISTORIAN Europe's Physician: The Various Life of Sir Theodore de Mayerne, by Hugh Trevor-Roper; Yale University Press, 2006, $59.95. IN HIS Times Literary Supplement review of July 16, David Wootton concluded: ...

Astronomer Royal.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... ASTRONOMER ROYAL Two words arranged to cover so much of the breadth of a civilization

Daddy Long-Legs.(Poem)
October 1, 2007... DADDY LONG-LEGS Companion in the silence when I write who makes no demands, harmless little Wellsian Martian stalking delicate and elegant in the window-sill's dust, thank you for your company.

Something to worry about.(Ryan)(Pillars of Power: Australia's Institutions)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... YEARS AGO--indeed so long ago that I can't even find a copy of the article--I wrote a piece about Australian federation. Not that I could claim any particular knowledge or professional qualification in that field; but what sturdy journalist has...