Last night I watched a documentary that I have had since 2016. It was about the Toowoomba Grantham flood disaster of January 2011 when communities in Queensland were devastated by a deluge of enormous proportions. It struck me, as I watched, how different people are from what they were 9 years ( or even 4 years ) ago.
As I watched, I had one word come in to my mind. HUMANITY. What is lacking today is our sense of humanity. Our sense of caring and compassion and regard for others.
Have we changed so much? Or is it that our Governments and media have changed and are expecting us to follow suit?
Read more: Humanity - our most precious gift
I just re read all the articles I have written for Patriotrealm.com and it is quite a strange journey to read my words so long after I originally wrote them. Sometimes I got it right and sometimes I got it wrong. My wife used to shake her head and head off to the fridge to open a bottle of wine and say to me " Jake, Monty is never going to print that. " I would then sit at the computer and type away and listen to the glug from the kitchen and I would yell out the odd " Oiy! Where's my beer? " just in case I could get away with it.
Sometimes, she would come in, slam a stubbie down on the table and saunter off. Other times she would come in and give me a wake up call and say " get it yourself you lazy bastard. " Still it was worth a try.
President Trump released the official 2020 Christmas photo and it certainly is a Christmas Cracker of an image.
On face value, it is a superb image of the President and First Lady, but, if you dig a little deeper, it tells quite a story.
Two of the bravest men from fiction have transitioned in to women.
When Daniel Craig retires, 007 will become a black woman.
Read more: Dr Who, 007, and what brought about their downfall
MPs are continuing to ask the Government to pressure China into ending the abuses of forced abortion and sterilisation against the Uyghur population in China.
Pressure is mounting on the Government to confront the Chinese Communist Party as MPs draw attention to the population suppression measures taken against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, China.
Read more: MPs demand action from UK Govt on forced abortions on Uyghur women in China
Sometimes, just when I think it cannot get any crazier, I read something that makes me realise we are still on the spiral downwards and I don't know where it will stop.
I share with you some of the book reviews that appeared on a website I subscribe to called Goodreads. "
If this is a good read, I think I must be on the wrong planet.
But hey ho, suffice to say that I do not share the opinions of those reviewers who, quite frankly, don't deserve to be parents if this is the rubbish that they read to their children.
I prefer " A Bush Christening. "
Read more: This looks like an ideal Christmas gift for your Grandkids?
I have lived on the Sunshine Coast for over 35 years and during that time have had several carpet snakes visit when we kept birds in an aviary. Very occasionally caught a glimpse of a red bellied black in the garden. Sometimes seen a big brown on one of the paths to the beach , but this year I have seen more snakes than in all the 35 years put together.
I don't know quite why it was that this poem sprang in to my head this morning. But spring it did and I found myself reciting it from memory, though I have not heard it in decades.
Back in the 80's ( the good old days ) my eldest daughter, then aged about 10, owned a copy of the book that beautifully captured the spirit of Banjo Patterson's wonderful bush poem. We gave it to her for Christmas one year and it quickly became her most treasured reading material. So much so that it would be read before she went to sleep and she was known to take it to the toilet to read and recite as she sat there on the throne in her private space.
At 9.41am on Monday 15 December 2014, Man Monis directed Tori Johnson (the manager of the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place, Sydney) to call 000 and say that all those in the cafe had been taken hostage by an Islamic State operative armed with a gun and explosives.
Eighteen hostages were held in the cafe for 16.5 hours. Over that period, 12 of the 18 hostages were able to escape in four separate episodes.
At around 2.13am on Tuesday 16th December, the cafe manager Tori Johnson was executed by Man Moris. Following the execution, police stormed the cafe and another hostage, Katrina Dawson, was struck by fragments of one or more deflected police bullets and died at the scene. The hostage-taker, Man Monis, was also killed in the firefight that followed the police storming the cafe.
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