QUAD COUNTERQUAD

It was a dark and stormy night. . The rain came in off the Transylvanian Sea in folded sheets and washed straight down the black stones of the walls of Castle Frankenstein. . Inside his castle, Dr Frankenstein was putting the finishing touches to his preparations – for his daring, some would say fiendish experiment, while his assistant Igor watched closely, his beady eyes darting here and there, missing nothing. . “Ve are ready at last! Brink in der first patient!” . Igor jumped to attention at Dr Frankenstein’s command. Since that unfortunate business at Castle Drumpfenstein, I mean Trumpenstein, he was wary of causing Dr Frankenstein any displeasure. . “Vill that be der Normein, der Charltein or der Rinkeindinkeinstein (Einstein for short) Herr Doktor?” . “Rinkeindinkenshtoon or vhatever its damned name is, you fool! I told you how many times? As it iss der larchest of der three mongreils we have, it vill be der easiest!” Igor brought in a very reluctant hound: an alleged Brittany ...

THE THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL SAGA OF NORMIE By IAN MACDOUGALL The following is a true account of one of those crises in life which we all encounter from time to time, and from which we can emerge with a changed outlook; sometimes but not always ‘sadder and wiser.’ . Normie was not a mere one in a million. He was absolutely unique. That said, I must add that for the majority of our friends, his passing was an occasion to be celebrated with the finest bubbly, and it was generally agreed by those who knew him that ‘we will never see his like again.’ The religiously inclined, with one notable exception, added an ’Amen’ or a ‘God willing’ followed by a short prayer of thanks at that point, and an extra swig of bubbly. The exception was my dear wife Jenny, Normie’s adoring and ostensible owner, custodian, keeper, curator, charge d’affaires or whatever other term might apply, which could include ‘host’ as in the ‘host-parasite’ relationship; or perhaps ‘dupe’ as applied to the victim...

Quadrant Online has an article attacking Karl Marx and all he ever stood for. (See link below.) . I put a comment onto it (since flagged as 'awaiting approval', then deleted.) For the benefit of the Quadrant readership, I post it below, along with some additional notes of my own. . • Ian MacKenzie – 14th January 2022 To be fair, Marx didn’t anticipate the eventual outcomes that flowed from Das Capital and the Manifesto, in fact just the opposite. Like many before him he imagined a utopia where all would be better off, rather than tossed in a shallow grave in the tundra or jungle. The essential problem with Marx’s thesis was that it was wrong. The predicted inevitable empowerment of the proletariat through revolution simply didn’t happen. Anywhere. The first “solution” to this was Leninism, whereby a small revolutionary vanguard elite, the Bolsheviks, “guided” the revolution in 1917. It was assumed that the revolution would then spread beyond Russia, however the defeat of all t...

I have a modest proposal for a modest amendment to the Australian Constitution, which in its present form I broadly support in the belief that it has served us well over the 120 years of its operation. Please make no mistake. I repeat: it has served us well. In the international constitutional stakes, it is a front-runner, and the Americans would do well by studying it. But there are problems. These I believe are highlighted by the way we appoint two important categories of decision-makers: jurors and politicians. . Jurors are appointed by random (off an electoral roll) selection. But arguably, they have the greater responsibility; literally a life-and-death one until not so long ago in Australia. . For very good reasons, jurors cannot self-nominate. Anyone who hung around court houses buttonholing passing court officials , judges and lawyers, offering their services as a juror and extolling their manifest fitness to ‘serve’ in the manner of campaigning politicians would probably be ar...

In the Southeastern corner of the Quadrangle at the University of Sydney, there once grew a large jacaranda tree; a glory to behold when in full bloom and covered with its sky-blue flowers. It has since been replaced by a sapling of the same species. Jacarandas, though native to Central America and not Australia, are widely grown as an ornamental tree the world over.   The university’s philosophy department and its lecture theatre used to be located in that same corner. Also close by was the office occupied from late 1927 to the early 1960s by the legendary Professor John Anderson, and central to Anderson’s philosophy was emphasis on unceasing enquiry and criticism. This was no better exemplified than in the trial and death of the Athenian philosopher Socrates, the story of which is related by Plato in his Apology of 399 BCE. That in turn was Anderson’s introductory text to freshers in Philosophy, and expounded upon and discussed at length by him for a full term. Robert Hugh...

A SPACE VEHICLE FOR BOTH MANNED AND UNMANNED SPACE TRAVEL Ian MacDougall A possible future for space exploration and journeys. I assume here that there will be future scientific and economic reasons for travel to become routine between the Earth and the Moon and International Space Station; perhaps also to Mars, hardly likely at all to Venus and Mercury, and very little by comparison to the outer planets, though their moons may be a different story. Travel beyond the solar system for crewed space vehicles is highly improbable IMHO, and even within the solar system would appear to present enormous logistical, support and supply problems. Ever since Yuri Gagarin’s first 1961 manned spaceflight, the only way to access space anyone appears to have considered has been via expensive, multi-stage, powerful and single-use rockets. What is proposed below is...