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Keywords: The Drum

  • RELIGION

    Between war and peace: Pope Francis' Ukraine conundrum

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 01 November 2023
    3 Comments

    Pope Francis' cautious remarks on the Ukraine war have stirred a complex blend of admiration, confusion, and criticism as he finds himself straddling the line between moral authority and geopolitical pragmatism. The challenge for Francis is how to uphold ethical standards while effectively engaging in the nuanced world of global diplomacy.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The humdrum of daily murder in America

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 30 October 2023
    4 Comments

    In this latest mass shooting in the United States, horror does not issue automatically, it is weighed down by being too familiar. We feel for the victims, but in that feeling runs the dismal knowledge that it is just another in a long line, seemingly without end. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The balance of compassion

    • David Halliday
    • 30 October 2023
    3 Comments

    The Hamas attacks on civilians posed a profound ethical conundrum for some. And it’s been sad to see progressives, who have for years sympathised with the plight of the Palestinian people and followed the actions of hard-line Israeli governments with dismay, attempting to downplay or rationalise the brutality of Hamas. Must empathy for one tragedy necessarily diminish compassion for another?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The cost of automated welfare

    • David Halliday
    • 17 July 2023

    In the aftermath of the Robodebt scandal, an unsettling public apathy has emerged. Beyond exposing the pitfalls of automated welfare and demanding accountability, the response — or lack thereof — spotlights a worrying indifference towards the disenfranchised.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In praise of the rituals of others

    • Jane Williams
    • 04 November 2019
    1 Comment

    Thank God for Bollywood and daytime TV. For the all night partyers and marathon love makers. For the hash brownie bakers, the nut crackers and pot-stirrers ... the drum-beating banjo-twanging wannabe musicians ... the incense wafting up from the first floor through our bathroom vent — frankincense I'm tempted to think.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Jacqui Lambie conundrum

    • John Warhurst
    • 17 September 2019
    8 Comments

    Serendipity is defined as the gift of finding valuable things in unexpected places by sheer luck. It is a good description of Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie in Australian politics. But there is a sting in the tail. A system which depends on serendipity potentially also has a big downside.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My Newstart conundrum

    • Andrew McAlister
    • 26 April 2019
    17 Comments

    My JAP informed me I was required to do 21 hours per week of Mutual Obligation activity, in addition to looking for work. They assured me the 21 hours would help me remain focused on the task of finding work. I replied I would now have to stop doing the things that were keeping me motivated to satisfy my Mutual Obligation requirements.

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  • RELIGION

    The Uniting Church's marriage conundrum

    • Avril Hannah-Jones
    • 27 August 2018
    17 Comments

    The narrative that the sexuality debate pits LGBTIQ members of the church against Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress and culturally and linguistically diverse members has been revealed for the 'fake news' that it has always been.

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  • CARTOON

    The citizenship conundrum

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 22 August 2017
    2 Comments

    This week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The fear conundrum

    • Michael D. Breen
    • 07 August 2017
    13 Comments

    How much fear do we want? Enough of it preserves our lives. Too much of it diminishes our lives. Currently, the balance is skewed by an overload of fear. Anxiety, its clinical name, is in epidemic proportions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Steering SS Australia through the doldrums is serious work

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 May 2017
    11 Comments

    In Australian public life we are becalmed in a sea where the trade winds of political will, imagination, ability to agree, trust and firm direction do not blow. We search for portents in the US skies and hope for wind from the budget. The challenge facing the serious person on the ship is to avoid responding to each rumour and proclamation and focus on what matters. What is needed is to sustain the spirits of the crew and to plan the continuation of the journey when the wind again fills the sails.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The moral conundrum of casting a vote on 2 July

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 June 2016
    46 Comments

    Sadly, the major political parties have forfeited any claim to govern in their own right because they have caused such disillusionment among so many voters about other policy issues with strong moral overtones. Any voter impressed with Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' or inspired by his visits to asylum seekers on the islands of Lampedusa and Lesbos could not blithely vote for either of the major parties, without first determining how to place some continuing political and moral pressure on them.

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