Quadrant back issues from April 2001:
THE EROSION OF THE "STOLEN GENERATIONS" SLOGAN.
Apr 01, 2001 ... THERE IS NO PLEASURE in saying "We told you so" when it comes to human misery and unhappiness, so the admission of Lowitja O'Donoghue that she is neither a "stolen child nor a member of the "stolen generation" gives us no pleasure. But it does serve to underline an important fact, that the ...
LETTERS.
Apr 01, 2001 ... THE HEAD OF STATE SIR: Your editorial, "Celebrating Federation" (March 2001), insults both the people supporting the forthcoming Corowa Conference and your readers' intelligence. Without offering any reasoned basis for your polemic, you proclaim, "There is to be a conference at ...
CLIMATE CHANGE: A SHORT PRIMER.
Apr 01, 2001; ... THE FIRST CALCULATION of the effect of burning fossil fuel on the world s climate were made more than a hundred years ago. They suggested that the average temperature of the Earth would rise by a degree or more because extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would act rather like a blanket ...
THE ENGINEER FORMERLY KNOWN AS STRANGELOVE.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Mein Fuhrer, they called me Doctor Strangelovein the 1960s. This now they'd dare not do.Right and Left then thought in Perverts, like youbut now it's Doctor Preference, Doctor Paralimbic-- I've also quit the White race. The accidentof pallor became not ...
SIGNS OF MOTHERHOOD IN HUMAN AND CROCODILE.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>I looked into her far eyes for the signs of a mammal to draw out.I found spider, swamp, cycad.Within minutes it was ancient and she had departed, ...
BUREAUCRACY VERSUS ART: ONE YEAR IN THE IRON CAGE.(Brian Kennedy, director of the National Gallery of Australia)
Apr 01, 2001; ... IN ONE OF HIS first public pronouncements upon taking the job as Director of the National Gallery of ustralia, Dr Brian Kennedy called for a debate on the le of a national gallery. His call was met with silence--the usual artworld response to anything resembling debate, although backbiting ...
THE AUTHORITY OF THE "I".(ethnic identity)
Apr 01, 2001; ... LIFE STORIES AND ETHNIC IDENTITY AS A RESEARCH fellow in the field of English, I have studied the multicultural literatures of Australia and Canada for several years. Although my work has varied in approach (thematic studies of texts, editing anthologies, empirical ...
GREAT BRITISH HISTORY.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... THEY WERE GOING to get Hampton High School in suburban Melbourne, because they still teach British History, a teacher acquaintance told me in the mid-1980s. Sure enough, a few years later the school, which I had attended in the 1940s, was closed, ostensibly for the much less contentious ...
UNFORGIVEN.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... FOR YEARS after he had served in Vietnam, American lieutenant Nathaniel Tripp would dream he had returned to the war The dream was always the same. He is living on his Vermont farm with his children when he hears a distant noise, beating and throbbing. "I know they are coming for me, and ...
LIFE ON EARTH.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>My copy's due backsooner than I'd expectedI hadn't really finished I'm afraid I haven't taken good care of itit's got creased quite badlyit's rather battered, bits are missing The middle was bestwhen you thoughtthere'd be a happy ending ...
AT STONEHENGE.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Alone, I approach the roped-off partWhere forty centuries are standing up.The stones are pocked, wind-bitten, mournfulAs baggage left behind in a retreat,As emblems of some piety or hopeFinally abandoned on this hill. Do I myself belong to an ethos ...
IMPRESSIONS OF WALT WHITMAN.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Only an I ...
PARKED OUTSIDE A LITERARY DO.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Publishers limospoets ...
A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... THE UNIVERSITY of Otago's Emeritus Professor of Politics, James Flynn, has never been one to heed advice to stick to his last, with the result that he has made lasting contributions to a number of areas outside political theory as narrowly conceived. Most famously, the "Flynn effect" is ...
TWELVE QUESTIONS FOR PAUL DIBB.
Apr 01, 2001; ... LAST WINTER, in the July-August issue of Quadrant, Paul Dibb had an essay under the title A Trivial Strategic Age?". It has not, to date, fetched a response. I believe that the subject he has raised is so important and his own standing in matters of strategic thinking in this country so ...
1. AN INTEGRATED TRANSPORT SYSTEM.(Melbourne, Australia)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Apr 01, 2001 ... With its bleak tangle of freeways, yovers and ramps (and the occasional high-rise slum-in-waiting oking through), a large part of inner Melbourne has come to resemble, albeit four decades late, a 1960s vision of the city of tomorrow dreamt up by some crazed Detroitfunded planner ....
Why I Like Argus.
Apr 01, 2001; ... "As a busy corporate chairman and friend of the PM my free time is strictly limited. I get one day off a week if I'm lucky and I want that to be quality time. That's where the ABC comes in with its wide range of programmes. I certainly wouldn't waste my free time watching any of them or ...
2. AN OFFER HE COULD REFUSE.(Lenny Sump refuses Con Pyorrhoea's request for donation)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2001 ... THE MELBOURNE GRAND PRIX has come and gone in a asma of petrol fumes and stale champagne. fortunately, connoisseurs of sleaze were denied this year the unappealing presence of world Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, Britain's pipsqueak-sized richest man. Ecclestone, it will be ...
CRITIC BEWARE.(Mietta O'Donnell)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
Apr 01, 2001 ... The recent death of the Melboume restaurateuse Mietta O'Donnell may remind some readers that she was an early recipient of the Argus Pro Bono Publico Award for her courageous stand in refusing two prominent "food critics" admission to her restaurant. This gallant act of defiance against ...
HAYDEN AND HANSON REVISITED.(Bill Hayden, Pauline Hanson)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2001; ... IT WAS JUST AFTER nine on Monday morning, 7th April 1997, when the phone rang in Bill Hayden's Brisbane office. "I understand Bill Hayden is a supporter of Pauline's position. Is that correct?" This was no idle enquiry; nor was it the start of one of the many attacks from ...
GREAT WHITE SHARK.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Which law protects this creatureWhose tug is the guiding sea--Whose silhouette is a white liner--Whose teeth show tartar to a swimmer? Should we cull a once-in-a-lifetime killer?Seals to dance on his skeleton;Sockets, ...
THE JANET FRAME QUESTION.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... IN THE CENTURY of materialisms and externality which have yet to escape, Janet Frame became one of the w major writers of the inner life. Born in Dunedin 1924, after much travel she now lives there quietly near her sister Her twenty-first book and probably last novel, The Carpathians, ...
PHOTOGRAPH OF MY GREAT GRANDPARENTS 1880.(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>My white great-grandfather is frightened of the camera's flash.You can tell by the way he is standing. Seconds before the photographwas taken, he would have faced the dark-sheeted boxas if it were a one-man firing squad. My black great-grandmother stands next to ...
ON THE TIDES OF HISTORY.
Apr 01, 2001; ... CHRISTOPHER KOCH'S DIPTYCH IN THE BEGINNING, the two novels were one. Between conception and parturition, Christopher Koch separated Highways to a War (1995) from Out of Ireland (1999). Subtly but substantially, the books remain linked by what Koch has called "echoes", ...
DR LECTER, I PRESUME.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... FILM-MAKERS saving a major writer from betraying his own creation? Unbelievable! Not really, because this is what screenwriters David Mamet and Steve Zaillian and director Ridley Scott have done in Hannibal for Thomas Harris, the author of the original novel. When the book was ...
THE ANT GLOVE.(Brief Article)(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Dear Father, after Mother's death, afterI'd read all your letters to her and her letters to you and finally understood that I was the fruit of her rape,I walked into the forest. The tribe I met there helped me write this letterpreparing me as they would ...
THE CAMELLIAS.(Brief Article)(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>are floating in a shallow bowl,circles of pink layered petalsthat silence browns, saffrons, absorbour voices, the table, the whole room. No word for this pinkwhich is kinder than red, warmerthan rose, more substantialthan sunset, invites me to ...
The Eel.(Short Story)
Apr 01, 2001; ... The eel appeared on the third year of the drought, when the creek was so low that the swimming hole grew a green velvet lining of algae. It was winter, and even though the water was cold, there were no flies to swat, so it was a pleasant time to pick over the mica-flecked stones ...
Mixed Identities.(Short Story)
Apr 01, 2001; ... The young lady with curly red hair entered the coffee bar, and immediately went to a small square table against the wall in the far right corner, where baskets of small tropical plants hung from the ceiling. She placed her black leather handbag on the table, almost casually, while her deep ...
Skipping Rope.(Brief Article)(Short Story)
Apr 01, 2001; ... As soon as they've finished their sandwiches, the children are allowed outside to play. Maisie catches up with Lydia at the bottom of the steps. Wanna play skippy?" she asks. "Uncle Ronnie came round last night and he brought me a new skipping rope". Lydia hesitates. She doesn't ...
28 THOUGHTS.(Brief Article)(Poem)
Apr 01, 2001; ... <Pre>Barefoot, and wanting home.Coffee, rain, umbrellas, grass damp as the sea,shells washed in wind,trees sad as limbs we befriend.The white car, small as acceptance.The ocean, grey as a breathing, flurried, stone. It stands up to kill you,You who ...
Hobbes: A Biography.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Hobbes: A Biography, by A.P. Martinich; Cambridge University Press, 1999, $65.90. BIOGRAPHY is no longer a service industry--according to Ray Monk, the widely applauded biographer of Wittgenstein. Not so long ago biographers were the caddies (A.D. Ho term) of the great writers ...
Hegel: A Biography.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Hegel: A Biography, by Terry Pinkard; Cambridge University Press, 2000, $69.95. BIOGRAPHY is no longer a service industry--according to Ray Monk, the widely applauded biographer of Wittgenstein. Not so long ago biographers were the caddies (A.D. Ho term) of the great writers and ...
Bertrand Russell 1921-70: The Ghost of Madness.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Bertrand Russell 1921-70: The Ghost of Madness, by Ray Monk; Jonathan Cape, 2000, $73.50. BIOGRAPHY is no longer a service industry--according to Ray Monk, the widely applauded biographer of Wittgenstein. Not so long ago biographers were the caddies (A.D. Ho term) of the great ...
Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe, by Martin Rees, Phoenix, 2000, $22.95. REVOLUTIONARY ADVANCES are now being made in science, particularly in fundamental physics and cosmology (two disciplines that are increasingly growing together), and in genetics and ...
Auchmuty: The Life of James Johnston Auchmuty.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Auchmuty: The Life of James Johnston Auchmuty, by Kenneth R. Dutton; Boombana Publications (Mount Nebo, Qld), 2000, $49.50. THE LIFE of an Australian vice-chancellor would not seem the most promising subject for an enjoyable biography. Unless the author had the special skills of ...
The Lecturer's Tale.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... The Lecturer's Tale, by James Hynes; Picador, 2001, $50. READERS OFFENDED by the pretensions of academic claptrap will like this one. The Lecturer s Tale by James Hynes, a "tale of terror and tenure" manages to be both politically incorrect, capital P, capital I, and hugely ...
Frank Hardy and the Making of Power Without Glory.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... Frank Hardy and the Making of Power Without Glory, by Pauline Armstrong; Melbourne University Press, 2000, $43.95. TO A CHILD of the late sixties like myself, Power without Glory reads mainly as a period potboiler operating at a fairly low heat. It has the reputation of a novel ...
The Colonial Earth.(Review)
Apr 01, 2001; ... The Colonial Earth, by Tim Bonyhady; Melbourne University Press (Miegunyah), 2000, $54.95. THE USUAL modern view of colonial Australians, according to Tim Bonyhady, is that they were antagonistic to the new land, exploiting it for all they were worth, impervious to its charms ...
THE DINING DECLINE.
Apr 01, 2001; ... THREE LITTLE WORDS often suffice to express much wisdom. How packed and pregnant, for example, was Descartes's "Cogito ergo sum". Kingsley Amis's "More means worse" has not been surpassed for predictive pith; he was speaking of universities, and the mad idea that "everyone" should have a ...