March 2022 Volume Volume LXVI, Number 3, No. 584
Éric Zemmour, the Insiders’ Outsider
Reconciliation at $1500 a Pop
Covid and the Phenomenon of Mass Formation
The Story of the Wuhan Flu
AUKUS and Those Who Missed Out
How to Launch a Revolution … and Lose it Too
Contents
-
The last thing you would expect a French Jew to do is declare Dreyfus guilty and Pétain a saviour. Very well, and thanks for the candour. We now know how far the maverick presidential candidate is prepared to go to establish in voters' minds his nationalist credentials and his distance from any other identityMarch 12, 2022
8 mins
-
DFAT's fifth Reconciliation Action Plan is due in April. How many more will be required before Australia’s diplomats finally achieve reconciliation with the country’s indigenous peoples? Mathematicians have a word for a series of numbers that starts small but increments at fixed intervals forever: infinityMarch 6, 2022
8 mins
-
The near-hypnotic concentration on the authorised COVID narrative led Australians to regard the bureaucrats' daily media briefings as must-see viewing. Meanwhile, with the TGA revelling in its newly acquired status as oracular arbiter, a bristling intolerance for rival analyses and competing outlooks took root in government, amongst its media handmaidens and, inevitably, the public mindMarch 17, 2022
13 mins
-
When Ai Ding, the hero of Liao Yiwu’s remarkable new novel, reads that the source of the new virus has been traced to a seafood market he recognises a coverup of monumental proportions. Yes, it's fiction but its greater truth is indisputable: 'For the peaceful well-being of mankind, the China empire must break apart'February 27, 2022
8 mins
-
As significant as who is in AUKUS is who isn’t. In contrast to the Five Eyes intelligence co-operation agreement, AUKUS doesn’t include New Zealand or Canada, two traditional allies of long standing. Could this be an acknowledgment that under their current political leadership each is increasingly unreliable?March 8, 2022
12 mins
-
The ledger of ruinous edicts enshrined as public policy made no distinction between dying 'with' or dying 'of' COVID. Next came the suppression of medical information at variance with orthodoxy, censoring dissenting scientists and constant, taxpayer-funded ad campaigns 'nudging' the populace to accept lockdowns, curfews, closed borders and social exclusion as rational, essential and never, ever to be questionedMarch 9, 2022
9 mins
-
There is disunion and distraction in Downing Street as the Prime Minister struggles to explain his cavalier attitude to lockdown rules. Meanwhile, amid growing divisions at home and absent efforts to broaden and deepen ties beyond Britain's shores, the Commonwealth faces the prospect of dissolution. The unavoidable surmise is that policy-makers and bureaucrats are either asleep at the wheel or actively hostileMarch 10, 2022
26 mins
-
Progressive social scientists, it turned out to the astonishment of none but progressive social scientists, were wrong: crime could go down even if the 'root causes' went unaddressed. New York became a peaceful, liveable city and we all forget about carrying a second, decoy wallet to placate sidewalk bandits. These days in a very bruised Big Apple it's back to the futureMarch 19, 2022
11 mins
-
As one of Austria's socialist chancellor once remarked, 'Everybody is in favour of reform ... as long as everything stays the same.' The rise and spectacular fall of Sebastian Kurz, hailed as 'the young Metternich' when he assumed the chancellorship at the age of just thirty-one in 2017, confirms that wisdom continues to applyMarch 26, 2022
19 mins
-
On August 5, as part of the government’s Closing the Gap Implementation Plan, $378 million was set aside for 'a financial and wellbeing redress scheme for living Stolen Generations members'. Amongst the many open questions, it remains to be seen what assessment mechanism is established to reconcile the government’s fiduciary duty to the public purse with its stated aimMarch 31, 2022
27 mins
-
Many will find the idea of King Charles III a difficult notion to accept at first, not for reasons of personal disdain but because Queen Elizabeth II reigned so long and has been part of so many lives. In Quadrant's February 2022 issue, Mark McGinness marked those 70 remarkable years with a tribute to an equally remarkable woman, an appreciation we today repriseSeptember 9, 2022
8 mins
-
A vanity project and media vehicle that keeps a hanky-headed self-promoter in the headlines, ARM has a fresh scheme for the selection of candidates and, from that shortlist, an elected president. It all sounds very simple and it is -- as simple as the thinking, to use that word advisedly, which could and would elevate narcissistic demagogues. Then again, perhaps that is what republicans actually wantApril 4, 2022
31 mins
-
Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt by Gerard […]February 25, 2022
16 mins
-
Academic Freedom Sir: In the January-February issue Salvatore Babones makes […]
February 25, 2022
10 mins
-
The ancient cache discovered in Qumran's caves consists of some 981 ancient Jewish religious manuscripts along with many thousands of fragments -- on that all who have been involved over more than seven decades of rivalries, secrecy, subterfuge and bitter theological dispute can agree. Beyond that, the fraught and fiercely contested question of their authorship remainsMarch 28, 2022
29 mins
-
The express train left Budapest in the early afternoon and […]
February 25, 2022
11 mins
-
In reminiscences and family matters handed down, few are written […]
February 25, 2022
34 mins
-
The Productivity Commission's recent research paper on the cost-effectiveness of prisons in reduxing crime states, 'The literature has consistently found that incapacitation through incarceration leads to significant reductions in crime.' Couldn't be more clear, right? Not to the report's self-same authors, who proceed to endorse a rather dim view of imprisonment's efficacy as a response to crimeMarch 15, 2022
15 mins
-
“Big Sister” Robin Marsden (1936–2021), who sadly succumbed to faculties-withering […]
February 25, 2022
7 mins
-
British and Irish country houses have long been seductive and […]
February 25, 2022
12 mins
-
Paul Paffen's 'The 1921-1922 Melbourne Public Library Mural Competition' takes readers down a warren of rabbit holes, each a fascinating exploration of disparate, eccentric and often furious painters and judges jostling to select and produce a tribute to the Great War's fallenMarch 13, 2022
9 mins
-
The dropsical behemoth that is the national broadcaster of today does not represent value for the billion-plus taxpayer dollars spent on it each year. That doesn’t worry leftists because, from writers’ festivals to “Safe Schools” and whatever edgy, little-watched fare the ABC produces and presents, they always expect other people to subsidise their indulgencesMarch 3, 2022
11 mins
-
The artistic licence director Justin Kurzel and scriptwriter Shaun Grant brought to 'True History of the Kelly Gang', which presented Ned Kelly as a beardless buffed-up teen with a mullet, is no less at work in their account of the Port Arthur massacre. Be that as it may, Bruce Beresford regards the film as 'easily the best I’ve seen about one of those awful shootings'March 27, 2022
19 mins
-
On the back cover of each of my Everest Grafton novels, in addition to Barry Humphries’s endorsement, the publisher cleverly highlighted four words from a humourless critic’s utterly negative review published in the utterly humourless Melbourne Age: “I never laughed once.” I’ve found that it’s often helpful to tip negative criticism on its head!March 30, 2022
19 mins
-
The agitated gentleman with the very large knife impressively resisted attempts to load him into a police van. Much of his yelling was muffled or obscure, but he did make one final, very clear call. 'This,' he bellowed, 'is a violation of my First, Second and Third Amendment rights!' Such logic eluded the arresting officers, who slammed the divvy van and restored silence to the Melbourne nightApril 2, 2022
8 mins
-
Domes and frescoes Across the wind-blown hill flanks Only green […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Woke Lady Macbeth The forming of a subject requires an […]
February 28, 2022
2 mins
-
Hilarious contraption Yves Klein, “Leap Into the Void”, 1960 The […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Snowfall The snow crochets patterns on her grey hair Jewels […]
February 28, 2022
3 mins
-
The moon that harms animals It’s going to harms animals, […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
At Leggett’s Ballroom Glissade, paso doble, alemana, cucaracha, Promenade, quickstep, […]
February 28, 2022
2 mins
-
Covid Lockdown Haiku Toilet roll frenzy A supermarket nightmare. Bathroom […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
COVID Vic. (with apologies to Leigh Hunt) Abou Dan Andrews, […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
The hemline of lost memories Lier, Flanders, 22 October 1569 […]
February 28, 2022
2 mins
-
The Temple The temple lies in ruins now desecrated and […]
February 28, 2022
2 mins
-
Renison Bell Loners, West Coast, Tasmania Mine manager’s son, I […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Conception in San Sebastian My mother wanted to eat Spain […]
February 28, 2022
2 mins
-
About Red Herrings Idly angling in time he snagged his […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Cockatoo Funeral After his funeral in Bunbury and back at […]
February 28, 2022
3 mins
-
Short Poem Verbophobia: fear of words. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: fear of long […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Portent She trembles before her omelet burnt almost black, splayed, […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
An Idle Guitar in Lockdown The guitar leans on the […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
-
Dying Insect The bug is Irish-dancing. This view is strange: […]
February 28, 2022
1 mins
