Quadrant articles from October 2008

Quadrant archives from October 2008

Religion and reason.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... SIR. I find myself in agreement with much of what Ian McFadyen writes (September 2008) concerning the unsupported claims of popular environmentalism. The problem is that, in comparing it to religion he does a grave disservice to the latter....

Averting catastrophe.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... SIR. Quadrant is certainly giving the climate change sceptics plenty of oxygen. Ray Evans heads up your September issue with an eight-page article, his third article this year, followed by a six-page article by Ian McFadyen, an imaginative...

The terrorist threat.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... SIR: In the September Quadrant, an article on Australia's universities ("Hijacking Terrorism Studies") refers extensively to the book Terror: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism. In doing so the author of the article claims that the book and its...

The ABC and the BBC.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... SIR: Geoffrey Luck's article "Can We Trust the ABC?" (June 2008) shows how slippery a fish bias can be, and how difficult it is to stand apart and give a balanced account of events. To demonstrate rampant and unrepentant bias in the BBC, he...

Sinking Cartesian sand.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... SIR." Peter Arnold ends his letter in the July-August 2008 edition declaring, "I think, therefore I am... an atheist." I suppose that Mr Arnold is aware of the original intent behind Descartes' dictum. It was not the introduction of...

How to rethink arts funding.(Culture)
October 1, 2008... IN THEORY government supports the arts. In reality the arts are directed by politicised bureaucrats who privilege the Left's cultural domination. A major disburser of money is the Australia Council. Where razors and structural change were...

A Patient Speaks His Mind.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... A PATIENT SPEAKS HIS MIND I'm glad you came. I mean, you ring the bell, the nurses never show. I feel like shit. There's all these tests and no one says when I can leave or tells me what comes next. How's...

Andantino.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... Andantino My love, we touch the way that pages touch inside a book, or like the way that notes of music cling to each other as they leave the page in flocks to form the song we write from day to...

If I Go First.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... If I Go FIRST (A Living Will) Where falls the petal of a poppy bleaching its once-bright red lay down to fade in fallow this freshly emptied head. Don't let my ash grey any flower draw circles, as with dry...

Illusions of climate science.(Environment)
October 1, 2008... HOW HAVE WE COME to a situation where, as some polls suggest, most Australians are so concerned about dangerous climate change that they will put aside the very tools and technologies that have sustained clean air, clean water, nutritious food...

After the March, Lewisham '05.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... AFTER THE MARCH, LEWISHAM '05 He has recovered from his wife's death As much as ever he will, though it's clear all's In place ready to act in his dying That's two years away from this month. But today He's in his best...

Sunbeams from cucumbers: Jonathan Swift and the Follies of Zealotry.
October 1, 2008... There was a most ingenious architect who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downwards to the foundations: which he justified to me by the like practice of those two prudent insects the bee and...

Rehabilitating Australia's National Museum.(Australia)
October 1, 2008... MAJOR CHANGES are being rung at the National Museum of Australia. At the time of writing (September 2008), two of the galleries--Horizons and Eternity--were closed in their entirety for complete redevelopment. A third--Old New Land, formerly...

The Violin Player.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... The Violin Player I am far out at sea standing on one unstable rock playing the violin I cannot see the rest of the orchestra they must have dived to the bottom for a quick sit down and rest I...

Stuart Macintyre and the Blainey affair.(History)
October 1, 2008... AT THE LAST FEDERAL election, Kevin Rudd promised an 'education revolution . However, the appointment last month of Stuart Macintyre to draft the national history syllabus for Australian high schools is anything but revolutionary. It is a...

The prehistory of 1968: the birth of an Australian radical intelligentsia.
October 1, 2008... A SYSTEMATIC STUDY of the contemporary Australian intelligentsia is a task of some urgency. It emerged some forty years ago within the adversary culture of the 1960s, a period of cultural revolution that affected most Western societies. ...

Mr Y and Mr Gorton.
October 1, 2008... THE BOND between the Canberra press gallery and federal politicians always tends to be unhealthily close, but rarely has it been so incestuous than during the hectic few days in March 1971 when Prime Minister John Gorton, after three...

Famine Girls.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... Famine Girls Cobh 1850 The roads to Cork fill with the young, but not the very young. Driven by whispers to get to the workhouse they dare not look back at the tumble of cottages. A slow shuffle, tugged forward...

The atheist delusion of Richard Dawkins.(Religion)
October 1, 2008... THE GOD DELUSION, by the atheist writer Richard Dawkins, is remarkable in the first place for having achieved some sort of record by selling over a million copies. But what is much more remarkable than that economic achievement is that the...

Sizing you.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... SIZING YOU The last time I saw you, your shirt rested on you like I wanted to. Well loved and washed often. A good fit.

Full with life.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... FULL WITH LIFE A small boy in a yellow jumper eats his sushi in one crinkle-nosed, flat-handed mouthful.

Today.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... TODAY. The sky stretches, air simmers. My nose pressed into your neck, smile into your collarbone, sunscreen, salt, skin, this infinity moment. I roll it around my mind like wine in my mouth, ...

A radical Christian conservative.
October 1, 2008... RUNNING THE SHOW is a wonderful collection of documents, where we can read for ourselves what B.A.S. was saying at various times, usually to his fellow workers. His long personal history is still a minefield, or rather a series of...

Cherries from Young.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... CHERRIES FROM YOUNG Cherries from Young that pretty town, white cherries and black, sun-windows on them. Cherries from Young the tastiest ever grow in drought time on farms above there. One...

Lord Mansfield and the culture of improvement.(Law)
October 1, 2008... THE MULTIPLE national enlightenments of eighteenth-century Europe had common themes which justify the continued use of the term the Enlightenment". I will concentrate on one such theme and illustrate it with one man's achievement. The...

Our misgoverned universities.(How Good Was Howard?)
October 1, 2008... GIVEN WHAT IS to come it is perhaps best to make it abundantly clear that I am in most regards an admirer of the Howard government. (See, for example, my piece on "John Howard and the Constitution" in the April Quadrant.) Nor is this, to put it...

New misdirections in kinship studies.(Universities)
October 1, 2008... IT SEEMS WIDELY to be acknowledged, especially in conservative circles, that social science departments in prestigious American universities are now situated far to the Left, and that cultural anthropology is the discipline most profoundly...

The problem of aboriginal art.(Art)
October 1, 2008... THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S inquiry into various matters relating to Aboriginal art will avail nothing unless and until there is first--general agreement on what actually characterises Aboriginal art. It is a towering problem because, as the...

Ode to Shoes.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... ODE TO SHOES for Carol Jenkins You are the machinery that conveys us to the world. You speak a language we all know: the dumbed-down shape, the well-worn sole, the made to last. You are not just figure in a landscape:...

The case for primaries.(Politics)
October 1, 2008... [W]e saw millions of Americans registering to vote for the first time, raising money for the first time, knocking on doors, making calls, talking to their friends and neighbors, mothers and fathers lifting their little girls and their little...

Three Haiku.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... THREE HAIKU among the morning blossoms-- the stone turtle more stones bright lights in the coin shop-- jewelry worn off the queen's neck my place for the oranges-- gravity's place

Hog Opera.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... HOG OPERA The Italian butcher lays him out on the slab like an artists model legs dangle and hang thick bristles beyond bristling one side of his face red flesh full of splintered bone the butcher...

Bereft.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... BEREFT This wrecked, eaten out, flute of porous wood, my heart.

Left.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... LEFT I drive myself home after parties, flex my fingers, feeling the absence of your hand. I rest mine on the passenger seat, habit, your warm knee gone. I still look over expecting...

The turbulence and the paradox.
October 1, 2008... "I WAS PRETTY MUCH out of step with the times," writes Alan Greenspan in The Age of Turbulence, referring to his political convictions in 1965, employing his fed-speak predilection for understatement. His advocacy of capitalism was indeed "out...

Ears.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... EARS 1. My father said, in my teenage years My finest feature was tiny cars. My spirit soared; I didn't know Everyone's ears continue to grow. He thought I'd be a tad more neat If less of me...

The clerk's tale: letters from Harry.(The Constitution)
October 1, 2008... ONE OF MY great pleasures in retirement is as a part-time volunteer guide at Old Parliament House, Canberra, conducting visitors around that wonderful building that has played such an important role in Australia's constitutional and political...

Five Haiku.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... FIVE HAIKU the sound of elephants-- the zoo closes on time lower clouds coming in-- one old address label under the new Trier-- construction workers in dirt the Romans left the map...

The Family Room.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... THE FAMILY ROOM 1. The builder's mate smashed our young fig tree flat. He called from his car window--I've killed your tree. In the uninflected voice of someone who has sat all night in the children's ward and...

Birds in Mind.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... BIRDS IN MIND i Sacred kingfisher-- into the world onto the branch courtesy the King. ii Wren and the art of bird-making--dear Lord, such blue in the bush! iii Statuesque heron--...

Becoming.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... BECOMING A girl from my girl and her love... A new human being has become... So becoming--this person who soon will call me "Grandpa!"

Double vision.
October 1, 2008... BEHIND Iceland Spar, John Greening's eleventh collection of poems, lies one wartime narrative and one remarkable mineral. In addition, I must own to a particular, almost jealous interest in the parallel between Greening's relationship with...

Moxham Ave.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... MOXHAM AVE I folded my book shut primly glanced out of the bus window there were the big boys cycling to school like the big boys do. His front wheel caught in gravel and as he fell he caught my eye I am...

The immigrant's story.
October 1, 2008... THE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS arriving in Australia from Europe increased rapidly just before and after the Second World War. As a postwar immigrant myself I would like to comment on how my experiences differ from the main characters in three...

The education counter-revolution.(Education)
October 1, 2008... EDUCATION, which is currently dominated by the politically correct Left, is a major front in the culture wars. Curiously, the politically correct Left is vulnerable as much because of its success in this field as its failures. Its success means...

Four Haiku.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... FOUR HAIKU not much accumulation in the old part of the cemetery-- first snow city center the streetcar fills up-- people who have a destination holiday party-- the trash crushed into one big bag back door...

Writing by numbers.(Literature)
October 1, 2008... "THERE IS A DIVINITY in odd numbers", wrote William Shakespeare, "either in nativity, chance or death. Whether or not A you accept that some numbers have supernatural properties, undeniably in numbers of every kind there is art. Numbers...

Conservatives off the beam.(Media)
October 1, 2008... PATRICK BUCHANAN, editor emeritus of the American Conservative, has been, I think, a fine writer. At one time he looked like a strong and sensible voice in the fight/mainstream of US conservatism. However, he is now going further and further...

The March.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... THE MARCH Pitt St. Just after the Dawn Service, April '08, my first. I'm here because somehow I want to have my father back, To take him from the photos taken just three years ago, --When he was pink-cheeked, sure-footed,...

War in the shadows.(Film)
October 1, 2008... DIRECTOR JEAN-PAUL SALOME has said that he got the idea for his new film Female Agents (original title Les Femmes de l'Ombre--Women in the Shadows) in 2004 when he read the Times obituary of April 24 for Lise Villameur, who had died aged...

Time on my hands.(Story)(Short story)
October 1, 2008... NOW that I have so much time on my hands I find that I'm thinking about you more than ! want to. Every day you've been in my mind a little more, intruding yourself. Today I realise that I've been thinking about you nearly as much as about...

This City.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... THIS CITY I am travelling away from my life, towards my life. This city knows all my secrets. And that tram, lit from within, waiting at the end of the line. This city, which is nowhere else.

The pawpaw.(Story)(Short story)
October 1, 2008... How strange are the ways of memory: decades after a happening it can spring vividly to mind. Whenever I see a pawpaw I am instantly transported to another time, another country, another pawpaw. Travelling in Sudan on long-service leave from...

Old wives' tale.(Poem)
October 1, 2008... OLD WIVES; TALE From the floor an old wives' tale winks at me in the watery glitter of dropped knives, forks and spoons. It's bad luck to pick them up my mother used to say when I was a boy, curtains...

The failed assassins.(Killing Hitler: The Third Reich and the Plots to Kill the Fuhrer)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... Killing Hitler: The Third Reich and the Plots to Kill the Fuhrer by Roger Moorhouse; Vintage, 2007, $30. THE DIFFERENCE between murder and assassination is clear-cut. It depends entirely on the victim, not the perpetrator. Anybody...

Convenient children.(Children on Demand: The Ethics of Defying Nature)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... Children on Demand: The Ethics of Defying Nature by Tom Frame; UNSW Press, 2008, $32.95. As I WRITE THIS it is the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first successfully conceived IVF baby. The IVF...

Beating Adolf Eichmann.(Kasztner's Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... Kasztner's Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust by Anna Porter; Scribe, 2008, $29.95. THIS BOOK IS LARGELY the story of the Hungarian Holocaust in 1944-45, the last, insane year and a bit of Hitler's European war....

Saints and sinners.(Ryan)
October 1, 2008... I TRY NEVER TO MISS Paul Johnson's weekly column in the English Spectator. The man, now elderly (as he himself sometimes points out) remains a fantastic fountain of words, as he has been for half a century. He was a loud and leading left-wing...