Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: King Lear

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The lighter side of dementia

    • Brian Matthews
    • 20 July 2012
    4 Comments

    Just when my friend was thinking to find a quieter place for this lost and distressed elderly woman while he worked out what to do next, she turned to him, her face alight. With one movement she opened her mouth, removed her denture and held it towards him. On the 'gum' was clearly inscribed her name and a phone number.

    READ MORE
  • MEDIA

    Justifying garden-variety torture

    • Max Atkinson
    • 12 July 2012
    6 Comments

    Any discussion of the morality of torture must distinguish two kinds of justification. The first is concerned with cases so exotic they have nothing to do with the ordinary affairs of mankind, such as the nuclear bomb ticking away in a New York basement. A real-life justification must provide a rationale for a wide range of common garden cases. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Lay off the Gina Rinehart fat attack

    • Moira Rayner
    • 15 June 2012
    33 Comments

    My first secretary later worked for Rinehart, and never had a harsher word to say other than she was 'an unusual lady'. She must have been raised by a mum, like mine, who said if you can't find something nice to say, don't say anything. Good advice for anyone deriding Rinehart for her 'unattractiveness'.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Poets in wartime

    • Various
    • 24 April 2012
    2 Comments

    O for a day without comrades bloody fallen, lovers in guttural grief, shrieking, sobbing, and mothers in stoic dignity, mantillas drawn tight, our heroic flame, corralled colts brazenly waiting, cruelly snuffed. Have we learned nothing my friend? 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Unlocking the culture of clergy sex abuse

    • Michael Mullins
    • 23 April 2012
    27 Comments

    Victoria's parliamentary committee has much it could learn from Ireland's Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse, which identified the 'don't ask, don't tell' culture under which bishops did not talk about it even among themselves and were unaware of how widespread the problem was.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Memories of two kings of Tonga

    • Alan Gill
    • 23 March 2012
    2 Comments

    There is a story that the king, having learned surfing at Bondi, introduced the sport to Tonga. I asked if he was ever fearful of sharks. 'There is nothing to fear,' he said. 'Look them straight in the eye like this!' At which he squared his shoulders in a demonstration of regal might which I shall never forget.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    War on terror is beyond the joke

    • Justin Glyn
    • 21 December 2011
    4 Comments

    The US Congress' proposals to allow indefinite military detention of its citizens without charge or trial, and America's ongoing use of unmanned attack drones to assassinate opponents, highlight anew the need for clear thinking when it comes to that much abused term, 'war'.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Feast of the fantastic

    • Peter Gebhardt
    • 20 December 2011

    This place is bigger than any kingdom. It opens out, boundary-less, to everyone everywhere. It doesn't matter how many come, and the skateboarders will always get a seat at the banquet, where they will taste the wine and food, learn to sing with the host and rejoice in his good.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    One lifetime, two Depressions

    • Robert Corcoran
    • 21 October 2011
    16 Comments

    When America sneezes the world catches cold. No wonder crowds are demonstrating against Wall Street. Successive economic crises reveal that we have forgotten the economic lessons learned after the Great Depression. I am one of the dwindling number of Australians who was alive at that time.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Boys learning sin and sex

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 30 June 2011
    4 Comments

    The Tree of Life is at once sublime and earthy. Watching it has been likened to 'living inside a prayer'. The adolescent Jack bonds with his emotionally distant father after taking his first tentative steps across the threshold of sin and sexuality.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Julia Gillard learns to lead

    • Lachlan Harris
    • 15 March 2011
    10 Comments

    Risk reduction sat at the heart of the first Gillard campaign and, until recently, it seemed it would also sit at the heart of the second. By announcing a carbon tax Gillard proved that her thinking about her role as prime minister has come a long way.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Our blind search for sweetness

    • Kevin Gillam
    • 08 February 2011
    1 Comment

    the tongue is bleeding, but the words come out the same. checking spelling, cursive immaculate, an orderly flight of birds across a yellowing page.

    READ MORE