Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
The ABC’s Beclowned Fact Check Unit
Readers may recall the popular UK comedy sketch program Little Britain, which mocked in delightfully brutal and sometimes wonderfully obscene fashion various modern British stereotypes. Of course, even though the program ended its three-year run as recently as 2005, it is unthinkable that such a show could be made today during our current easily-triggered hypersensitivity era. Among Little Britain’s comical characters were gays, obese black women, retarded shut-ins, transvestites, immigrants and incontinent elders.
Conservatives and the middle classes also copped it. Little Britain handed out the wickedness to everybody. Yet even one of the show’s stars, Matt Lucas, confessed in 2017 that he has since had second thoughts. “Basically, I wouldn’t make that show now. It would upset people,” Lucas told an interviewer. “Society has moved on a lot since then and my own views have evolved.”
Sweetness & Light appears in every Quadrant.
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Evolution…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
