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
Derek Wright: ‘Year of Blunders’
Year of Blunders
They thought the plague was spread by cats
and killed the animals that killed the rats.
They burned up wood to heat branding irons
leaving none for carpenters and coffins.
Doctors who lanced their patients’ buboes
were sprayed with suppurating pus,
causticked their wounds with a flaming rod
that killed them before the pestilence could.
Some thought it gone when it did but pause
and, deeming it safe to leave their house,
unboarded their windows, broke quarantine
and were infected all over again,
some in their heads, laureled with fire
as they raved naked in the city square.
We’ve learned from them. We know better, we say.
We shall all stay home and go mad that way.
Derek Wright
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
