![quarantine sign II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/quarantine-sign-II-1.png)
Locked Down and Loving It
Being loaded with implications of disease and deprivation, “quarantine” isn’t the most attractive word. Lately it has also come to be associated with racism, at least in the mind of former human rights commissioner Tim Sudokupuzzleclue, or whatever his name is.
“Australian citizens deserve better from their government,” Sudafednasalspray fumed on Twitter after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced in January that Australian citizens returning from Wuhan in China would be quarantined for a time.
Mr Superflyingfunshow then quoted an offended individual: “The government wouldn’t send its citizens to Christmas Island detention centre if those who are trapped in Wuhan were white Australians.”
Note the assumption there that every Australian citizen returning from Wuhan was of Chinese background. When those citizens began turning up at Christmas Island a few days later, however, a number of white Australians were among them. The two-week Christmas Island coronavirus…
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.
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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
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2 mins