Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Controversy

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Imaginative connections between Haiyan and climate change

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 November 2013
    9 Comments

    The confluence of the Climate Conference in Warsaw and the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines has been confronting. If they are treated separately there is little problem in finding words and symbolic gestures to recognise the importance or lack of it placed on each. But it is hard to find words to hold together climate change and the death of so many people in natural catastrophes, let alone to act as if they might be related.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Christian social thinking for Australia

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 November 2013
    1 Comment

    'Many Catholics wonder how we can maintain our Christian faith at this time in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis and the many judgmental utterances about sexuality and reproduction. The Church that has spoken longest and loudest about sex in all its modalities seems to be one of the social institutions most needing to get its own house in order.' Frank Brennan's address to the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy, 8 November 2013. 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The insubstantial Bishop of Bling

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 October 2013
    13 Comments

    Springtime draws attention to the sweet harmonies and scratchy discord between style and substance. Ducks escort their young across green lawns, and peck at anything that dares approach them. Young things in suits or summer dresses sit sozzled in Cup Day mud. Meanwhile in the Catholic Church, Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was suspended from office for his profligate spending during a time of austerity.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's misplaced friendship with Turkey

    • Peter Stanley
    • 26 August 2013
    66 Comments

    The NSW Parliament recently passed a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide, conducted by Turkey in 1915. The Turkish Consul-General in Sydney, the foreign ministry in Ankara and even the city council in Gallipoli immediately responded. The resolution disrupts the astoundingly successful charm offensive Turkey has conducted in Australia for years, fostering a positive relationship with Australia through the shared ordeal of Gallipoli. 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    When mines and football clubs betray the common good

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 August 2013
    3 Comments

    The common good can seem a very milky-tea concept — too bloodless for the real world. But it is an important idea, one which we need if we are to make sense of phenomena as disparate as the findings on corruption in the awarding of mining licenses in NSW, the initial report of the NSW chief scientist on coal seam gas mining, and the daily excursions in the drugs and footballers epic.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Crime kids served celebrity gods

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 August 2013
    1 Comment

    'God didn't give me these talents and looks to just sit around being a model or being famous. I want to lead a huge charity organisation. I want to lead a country, for all I know.' In 2008–2009 a group of teenagers stole $3 million of jewellery and clothes from the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and other Hollywood stars. Coppola portrays this as an outcome of materialism centred on celebrity worship.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Continuity in a changing church

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 July 2013
    9 Comments

    In the tension between tradition and change, John Paul II is seen as an emblem of continuity, and Pope John XXIII as a symbol for radical change. In the decision to canonise both former popes, Francis has refocused continuity as a way of honouring different perspectives in the name of a greater common mission.

    READ MORE
  • MEDIA

    The socialist with rosary beads

    • Ray Cassin
    • 26 June 2013
    6 Comments

    Paul Mees, who died last week at the age of 52, was a public intellectual in the best sense of the term; a scholar and teacher with an international reputation; an activist who never shrank from a fight. He was also a man of deep faith, though many who admired Paul ignored this or regarded it as an eccentricity.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    McGuire ape gaffe exposes Australian tolerance as myth

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 31 May 2013
    29 Comments

    Those who object to Indigenous people being called 'apes' and to white men painting themselves black are dismissed as being politically correct and denying free speech. But how can Adam Goodes choose not to be offended by comments conceived for the very purpose of justifying crimes against the racial group to which he belongs?

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Time to draw the line between Australia and Timor Leste

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 May 2013
    27 Comments

    Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A modest solution to Morrison's asylum seeker woes

    • Brian Matthews
    • 26 April 2013
    9 Comments

    If the Shadow Minister for Immigration had read Swift's satirical essay 'A Modest Proposal', a new front in his asylum seeker campaign would have opened up. Spurning Nauru, all he has to do is channel asylum seekers into hunting-specified NSW parks and reserves and let Barry O'Farrell's hunters do the rest.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    To kiss or kill a feral cat

    • Ellena Savage
    • 15 February 2013
    15 Comments

    Whenever I spot that lithe mottled feral cat lurking behind our pumpkins, I have to fight bipolar urges. The kitty-lover in me wants to lure it in with milk and sardines, then trap it into a co-dependent relationship. My other urge is the environmentally responsible one: to take it to the vet and have it put down.

    READ MORE