Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Vol 23 No 6

25 March 2013


 

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Living in the echo of suicide

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 05 April 2013
    4 Comments

    I know and love people who struggle with depression. I've lost friends to suicide. Depression was my constant companion at times and suicide an alluring, far country. A recent novel delves into the life of a family reeling from the suicide of a child, and shows that even in the deepest recesses of grief, joy can interrupt.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's cult of Rudd-hate

    • Ray Cassin
    • 05 April 2013
    29 Comments

    In Orwell's 1984, the daily 'two-minutes hate' sees citizens gather to scream their loathing at images of Big Brother's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein. The ritual has become so entrenched that what Goldstein is supposed to have said or done has become mostly forgotten and largely irrelevant. So now it is with Rudd.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    When community organisations sup with the devil

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 April 2013
    27 Comments

    A certain metaphorical framework sees community organisations as factories and the people they serve as consumers. It can be useful to focus attention on the costs and efficiency of programs. But when it becomes the master model for caring for human beings, it betrays all that most community organisations are about.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rebuilding humanity after workplace horror

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 April 2013
    3 Comments

    Stéphanie loses her legs in a workplace accident. Alain is a single father who becomes her confidante. Their sexual encounters are shown to restore and affirm her dignity; they highlight the physicality of the act, particularly how Stéphanie's confidence in her own changed body flourishes through it.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    Credit where it's due

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 03 April 2013

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    A Muslim, a Buddhist, a Catholic and two atheists walked into the ABC

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 03 April 2013
    27 Comments

    Many must have wondered if it was an April Fools joke. An episode of Q&A worth watching? One without a single pompous pundit or partisan politician? Despite the presence of two atheists, religion dominated, perhaps because the most articulate spokesperson for atheism was herself representing a faith.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The everyday courage of carers

    • Helen Sage
    • 03 April 2013
    14 Comments

    In 1999 my 22-year-old daughter sustained a head injury in a motor vehicle accident. She now contends with the use of only one normally functioning limb amid multiple disabilities. The 'support' provided by family carers is said to save the nation billions of dollars annually. But carers give much more than support.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Downer and Costello's murky world of political lobbying

    • John Warhurst
    • 02 April 2013
    8 Comments

    In days past the 'consultancy' activity of former senior politicians was cloaked in respectability and not perceived as being at the hands-on end of lobbying. That pretence has now ended and Alexander Downer and Peter Costello are good examples. It is an unhealthy development with plenty of room for conflicts of interest.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Invading Australia

    • Saba Hakim, Ray Carmichael and Ouyang Yu
    • 02 April 2013
    1 Comment

    We have wished to invade Australia like you'd never imagined from where we are based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, countries reduced by hegemony to hell. We ruled the waves till we were in sight of an island that looked from afar like a welcome entity.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Francis and the marginalised at Easter

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 March 2013
    24 Comments

    Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Thursday Mass among young offenders who are marginal in any society. His gesture says something about Easter, and about the implications of his desire for a Church of the poor. Those who stand in solidarity with the marginalised will themselves become marginalised. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard's game of thrones

    • Jim McDermott
    • 28 March 2013
    12 Comments

    Were you not there when I appointed Lord Slippery to the most honourable office in the land? Were you not there when I travelled to Western Sydney to be with my people and then did only carefully controlled media events? I do not need to make sense. I am Queen! Now, send me my Guild of Faceless Men.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Christmas Island capsize demands coronial inquest

    • Tony Kevin
    • 28 March 2013
    39 Comments

    The details of the event as so far publicly known suggest seriously life-threatening negligent process. No one would have died if this unnecessary and, on the face if it, unprofessional halt and boarding had not taken place. No amount of blaming the asylum seekers' poor seamanship can get around that fact.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australian teacher's refugee wake-up call

    • Jessica Brown
    • 27 March 2013
    7 Comments

    A large, harrowing eye is marked on the clay outside the door of one refugee family, tears splashing down. Depression hangs in the air, mingling with the overwhelming odour from the inadequate sewage system. Still, the family unity remains strong, and the seed of hope is evident among the young people.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    Labor stains

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 27 March 2013

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Big business twists tax truth

    • David James
    • 27 March 2013
    2 Comments

    Australia's business lobbies are fond of complaining that company tax is too high. Lower it, they argue, and the economy would become more dynamic and everyone would benefit. The reality isn't that simple. The combination of Australia's dividend imputation system and the compulsory super scheme greatly benefit Australia's big companies.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Where granny got her stick

    • Bronwyn Evans
    • 26 March 2013

    A wooden sturdy poker, it helped on the days when you couldn't feel the floor, but was no substitute for a seat on the tram when you don't look sick or expecting.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's cruel joke on asylum seeker women

    • Susan Metcalfe
    • 26 March 2013
    15 Comments

    While the Government deserves some credit for its decision to transfer pregnant women from the PNG detention centre to Australia, and for refraining from sending children under the age of seven to the facility, the fact remains that it has embraced and entrenched many of the Coalition cruelties that in 2007 it promised to end.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard's finest hour goes unnoticed

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 March 2013
    23 Comments

    Most of our attention on Thursday focused on the disintegration of the ALP, reflecting politicians at their worst. But one of Friday's minor headlines described the overshadowed Forced Adoptions Apology as Julia Gillard 'at her finest'. The emerging pattern of official recognition of the hurt caused to disadvantaged Australians by past public policy deserves more exposure.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Abbott's quest for constitutional inclusion

    • Frank Brennan
    • 25 March 2013
    9 Comments

    Given the opinion polls and divisions in Labor, it's no surprise Abbott is confidently preparing his team for government. Anything he says about constitutional change therefore carries weight. Advocates for constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians would be heartened then by two of his recent speeches. 

    READ MORE