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
Rod Moran: ‘Lazarus Tried to Comfort Edvard Munch, 1893’, ‘Lazarus Encountered Camus in Oran’ and ‘Lazarus Pondered the Academy’
Lazarus Tried to Comfort Edvard Munch, 1893
Lazarus tried to comfort Edvard Munch
Channeling the world’s deep anxieties,
The Scream like a vivid premonition,
A scarification of Nature and Man,
The blood-blue harbour a vortex,
A palette of dire undertows swirling,
The sunset like a warp in History,
Its burning wavelengths above the fjords,
A lurid backcloth for an insane opera.
Lazarus intuited Death’s return,
Unable to offer any consolation.
Soon, The Scream enveloped all of Europe.
Lazarus Encountered Camus in Oran
Returned from Death’s fathomless desert,
Lazarus wandered the streets of Oran.
The moon’s gaunt image like a skull
Trembling on the blacked-out harbour,
Scarred ghost-ships, a lament of gulls,
Blue-barbed stars coiled on the wadis,
Searing winds like an arid call to prayer.
Encountered a brooding Albert Camus
Slumped in a backstreet estaminet,
Longing for the light of a solar sea,
The consolations of Absurdity,
Vatic clinician of shape-shifting…
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
