The PR Blog

The 16/17th May marks this most famous raid of WW2, the destruction of the Ruhr dams with the bouncing bomb. The story is so well known and has been told so often I do not think I could do it any more justice than has already been written so many times.

Instead, I propose to concentrate on the three leading characters of the story. They are 617 Squadron, RAF, its squadron leader, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC. and Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb.

617 squadron, better known as The Dambusters Squadron, came into being on 21^st March, 1943 at Scampton in Lincolnshire, specifically at the direction of Air Marshall “Bomber” Harris, Commanding Officer of Bomber Command. Harris personally appointed Gibson to command it and gave him carte blanche in selecting the personnel from any squadron in the RAF or attached Dominion air forces. At the time of his appointment and for some time afterwards Gibson was not allowed to be told the target, only that it was a very secret mission requiring very low altitude flying against a critical target.

" The benefits of government can vary depending on the specific form of government and its effectiveness. Here are some general benefits associated with well-functioning governments:"

And therein lies the rub: what is a well functioning government? 

What makes it the thing that we will vote for, support and defend? 

What makes us actually WANT a government? To pay taxes? To be brow beaten?  Seriously, why do we have a government? 

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”

The concept of Mother’s Day as we know it in Australia began in the United States in the days of the Civil War by two ladies who were Peace advocates and suffragettes. They started a campaign to care for wounded soldiers from both sides by creating Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve public health.

They made a Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870 and called on mothers of all nationalities to join together and promote the amicable settlement of international disputes. The movement did not succeed. The lady’s name was Anna Jarvis but she persisted with the idea of setting aside a special day to honour all mothers because a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world".

What is it that makes us remember things from our past and, for some inexplicable reason, they stick with us?

Some things are from distant memories of childhoods lived and recalled with great fondness. Others talk about an incident from adulthood. In all cases, they feature an event that has stayed with us as a “ keeper “ in the file cabinet called our memory.

When people approach their end of useful life ( according to the young smart arses that think that they will live forever, or perish due to climate change before their 30^th birthday ) it seems to be that our minds retreat to happier times that our brains chose to save, while deleting so many thousands of days.

Why is that?

Martin Luther King Jr.(referred to as Martin) was born Michael King Jr in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on January 15, 1929. His father, Michael King Sr, was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. King Sr had attended the Baptist World Alliance in Berlin, Germany, in 1934, which condemned the rise of Nazism. On his return home, King Sr renamed himself and Martin as Martin Luther King, in honor of the Protestant reformer Martin Luther.

Martin had an older sister, Christine, and a younger brother, Alfred, who would play influential parts in his life.

At the time of Martin's birth, anti-African American laws, known as Jim Crow laws (Laws) were spread across the previous Confederacy and some other states. Jim Crow was a derogatory term for African Americans, named after a song and dance routine, Jump Jim Crow, performed by a white actor in blackface in the 1820s.