November 2020 Volume LXIV, Number 11, No. 571
The State of Daniel Andrews: Victoria’s Governor Bligh
The Thin-Skinned Irish
How the Massacre Maps are Killing Aborigines
The Bonds That Bound a Nation
Black Lives Matter: The Police Perspective
The Discrimination Delusion
Contents
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Australians have never been drawn to Fletcher Christian-style liberty-mongering, the Rum Rebellion and Eureka Stockade being two exceptions. As Victoria endures the consequences of its Premier's assault on honest disclosure, his state's economy, employment and civil liberties, not to mention some 800 needless deaths, residents are entitled to shed the ballast of their customary reserveNovember 10, 2020
45 mins
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Each man, woman and child in Ireland now owes the world’s banks €34,000. But here’s the thing: the Irish remain devoted, abject Europeans, much as slaves might thank their masters for such lovely fetters. But don't mention that servility, or any other shortcoming, lest the howling beginNovember 22, 2020
13 mins
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Plagiarism, misquotation, vague dates, variable death tolls and scenes of alleged conflict that leap about the countryside according to the need of researchers who all too often spurn primary sources in favour of whatever suits the narrative of slaughter -- that's how to draw a 'massacre map'November 25, 2020
21 mins
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Wall Street was lobbying for a bailout of its Revolutionary War bonds, and although Alexander Hamilton the man was born in the West Indies, Hamilton the lawyer, politician and financier hailed from New York. Bondholders, most of whom had picked up the debt at a hefty discount, stood to gain a fortune, with George Washington the biggest beneficiary of allNovember 8, 2020
8 mins
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When I saw the tragic and unnecessary death of George […]October 31, 2020
25 mins
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I attended university as a mature-age student. Luckily for me, […]
October 31, 2020
8 mins
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Sir: What is it with French intellectuals? Why are they […]
October 31, 2020
11 mins
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Conservative pessimism is allied with prudence: man is not perfectible, the future is not under our rational control, make haste slowly. The pessimism of the Left is dangerously different, making a virtue of misery to justify the prescriptions social engineers and activists advance to remedy it. What it is really all about, though, is the pursuit of powerNovember 21, 2020
8 mins
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Should Trump lose we'll be in uncharted waters. The Democrats might even impeach him to ram home the “illegitimacy” message and cripple his ability issue pardons. As the media, Hollywood, academia, the China lobby and Big Tech cheer, Russiagate prosecutions would be dropped along with any other investigations likely to embarrass Clinton or ObamaNovember 3, 2020
9 mins
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My assumption was that the failure of Keynesian policies to regenerate growth after the GFC would lead to a re-examination of modern macroeconomic theory. Such innocence! Virtually no one blamed the anaemic recovery on Keynesian policies, nor are they likely to do so nowNovember 23, 2020
26 mins
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Giles Auty died in September, just short of his eighty-sixth birthday. He had been a valued friend and contributor to Quadrant ever since he arrived in Australia in the 1990s to write for The Australian. This memoir is the last in a series of three he wrote in the months leading up to his deathNovember 28, 2020
14 mins
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Long before COVID-19, pandemics of a far more virulent nature stalked the imaginations of novelists and screenwriters, from 'The Andromeda Strain' to Hollywood's more recent fascination with zombie hordes. In Wiltshire, with the help of Russian assassins and the Novichuk nerve agent, those fancies took fleshNovember 29, 2020
14 mins
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American Virginia-class submarines have sealed nuclear reactors and a life expectancy of 34 years service. We don’t know what the French attack class would be capable of were they not being reworked for domestic political purposes into a misbegotten diesel-electric configuration that will be extraordinarily expensive, extremely vulnerable and almost entirely uselessNovember 5, 2020
9 mins
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The perceived importance of maps reduces to a misconception, or at the very least a simplification, of geopolitics, for it is technology and economics that change geography, and maps adjust to reflect that. It is this furphy -- that maps decree destiny -- which needs to be kept at front of mind mind when considering Belt & RoadNovember 20, 2020
25 mins
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I’d read only twenty pages of this rather slim book […]
October 31, 2020
8 mins
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While swine flu was not as infectious as Covid, governments did not close down societies and economies and trample civil liberties. Why is COVID different? Several factors help to explain the extraordinary reaction. Media, both social and conventional, inflated the perception of risk. Bad news sells, and the madness of crowds now spreads electronicallyNovember 12, 2020
22 mins
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The proportion of Australian university research rated at or above world standard has been rising, but taxpayers, academics and students need to look quite a bit harder before joining the celebration of our universities’ rankings successNovember 26, 2020
8 mins
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Back in 2017, Israel's transport minister proposed that a railway connect Saudi Arabia with Israel’s port of Haifa. Three years ago that seemed fanciful but not any more, not after the Trump-brokered pacts with United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Israel is no longer an imposter in the Greater Middle East but a key piece of the puzzleNovember 17, 2020
20 mins
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Lyle Shelton’s earnest arguments against legalising prostitution, pornography and 'adult entertainment' are at no point hateful or bigoted, as his critics charge. But he seems reluctant to accept that in all these cases he is grappling with social issues that have no simple solutions, least of all the invoking of 'Biblical sexual morality' as the gold standardMarch 14, 2021
20 mins
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I have written to both the federal Education Minister Mr […]
October 31, 2020
25 mins
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Adolphe and Rychlak’s Clerical Sexual Misconduct is a very controversial […]
October 31, 2020
14 mins
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Marc di Saverio is a multi-lingual Canadian poet and translator. […]
October 31, 2020
17 mins
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A translator can be lucky. I don’t know French; but […]
October 31, 2020
12 mins
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Rather than argue the toss when their son chose to take up a career in welding rather than do an arts degree, my friends were elated. They had come to realise -- as have many Australian families -- that modern universities actually subtract knowledge and replace it with politicsNovember 27, 2020
8 mins
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The Pict museum The Pict museum, there is nothing in […]
October 31, 2020
2 mins
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Her Smile A smile is always more than flesh for […]
October 31, 2020
1 mins
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Art in the Singing Garden Toolangi, Victoria There are […]
October 31, 2020
4 mins
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My First Girlfriend I was nineteen in 1979. I wore […]
October 31, 2020
3 mins
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What’s that? Climate changes everything. Is that what they’re saying? […]
October 31, 2020
1 mins
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Intimations of Informality We’ll pierce the sunset orange, And transcend […]
October 31, 2020
1 mins
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The Homecoming 1 Restraint As the car pulls up the […]
October 31, 2020
2 mins
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Bone Memory These lichen-dappled rocks are worth a daily visit. […]
October 31, 2020
2 mins
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The Darling of Sensitivity Readers Having read Mansfield Park as […]
October 31, 2020
4 mins
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Lucy at the conference for Lucy Dougan When Lucy […]
October 31, 2020
1 mins
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Department of Health Hand-washing Guidelines 1. Wet hands thoroughly There’s […]
October 31, 2020
3 mins
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Grandmother Song We lived out by the river where the […]
October 31, 2020
2 mins
