30 minutes of truth bombs’ is how one Twitter user described Liberal Democrat John Ruddick’s maiden speech to the New South Wales (NSW) Parliament, last Wednesday 28 June.
Indeed, Ruddick, who left the Liberal Party in 2021 after public disagreements over the Party’s handling of the pandemic response, said out loud in parliament what many Australians have been saying for some time now – at first privately, around dinner tables, but increasingly more publicly, over workplace water coolers or at the pub, as saying the obvious becomes more socially acceptable.
Read more: YouTube Censors Australian Politician’s Maiden Speech to Parliament
It was about 30 years ago when I was living in a tiny town in the Channel Country. It was a Sunday morning and I got a phone call from a hospital about 14 hours away. My daughter was in their care and suffering from a particularly nasty viral infection in her lungs. Could I perhaps come as soon as possible? She had Meningococcal pneumonia.
She was a young Nurse. A kind and caring young 18-year-old. In training.
Alone, so far from home.
As a Mum. I needed to be with her.
So I started my journey to do what I had to do: be with my daughter. Because that is what mothers do.
Up in the far north of Australia, at the pointy end, there are crocodiles. Little crocodiles, bigger crocodiles and bloody monster crocodiles, some reaching near thirty feet in length. I have seen them at all these sizes, in their environment, from Red Island Point up near the pointy bit of the Cape, down to Cairns, and of course, they are further south too, but my area of interest in those days, long ago, was from the pointy bit of the Cape to just south of Cairns
.Once upon a time, long, long ago, PP worked for a government department, in a job that required PP to visit and remain in indigenous communities for one week, back to the office for one week, then live in another indigenous community for one week, continuously, for well over a decade.
Humour is as old as humanity itself. I am not sure if our ancient ancestors, clad in loincloths and whipping up another batch of ochre for their cave paintings, found amusement in the absurdity of life. But they must, sure as faith, be having a laugh at us now as we launch from one accusation of racism to another. They must think it very amusing that we now rate our value as humans on how long we have lived in a country when, back in the day, no such thing as a country even existed.
We were all part of the same brew, just painted with a different dye.
But back to humour, the point of today's ramblings.
Read more: The Best Medicine on the Planet - Laughter. Is That Why it's Banned?
Independence Day, also known as the Fourth of July, is one of the most significant holidays in the United States.
It is a day filled with patriotic fervor, fireworks, parades, and barbecues, as Americans come together to commemorate the nation's independence. But what is the history behind this iconic celebration? I believe it is more. Much more than that.
The story of Independence Day begins on July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress, comprised of delegates from the thirteen American colonies, adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Read more: The 4th of July - a Day that Means More than Fireworks, Fun and Festivities
Yes, let’s be honest. The days when the Italians, Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Poms and Chinese all packed up and headed downunder or over yonder bear no resemblance to the current influx of migrants.
The 3 phases of population growth can be loosely tied down to the pre World War II, post WW2 and the here and now.
Society has changed and societal expectation has shifted from what ‘they can do for us ‘ to ‘what we can do for them.’
Read more: Settlers and Citizens, Immigrants and Invaders....... It is Time to be Honest
That was how speeches used to start many years ago.
I shudder to think how someone would even begin to speak today. The lunacy that has hijacked our world has become so bad that I often wonder how public figures commence a speech at all.
No one is brave enough to say what a woman is and people are afraid to announce that they have a boy or a girl. Having a son or daughter is no longer celebrated. In fact, I often wonder if the word " child " is next on the list of banned words.
People like me are so angry at what has happened to our world, and it seems that our governments are encouraging the downfall of everything we have worked towards.
Did you know that dogs, probably most of them, can read the road? Eddie could lean like a motorcycle rider on a curved road.d
I supposed it was a natural response to physical pressure of weighting to the left or right. This intrigued me enough to make an experiment to understand if the dog actually could read the road or simply responded to centrifugal forces.
On my route to town was a right-hand bend that passed over an old wooden bridge. There was also an old dirt section that went straight ahead bypassing the bridge.
To this day I carry guilt for that experiment of deception.
So many words are used these days ( even in this world of diminishing adjectives.) The young and less well-educated of our global population would no doubt tell us that something they like is awesome, wicked, cool, sick, hot, or some such other word that bears little relationship to its original meaning.
I would hate to have to write a dictionary for today's younger generation. How something can be cool and hot at the same time is beyond me. A young man may see a young woman and say " she is hot. " or " she is so cool. She is smoking hot " These phrases mean that a young man has just seen a particularly attractive female to whom he is sexually attracted.
I know exactly what they mean. But it caused me to ponder how our vocabularies have shrunk over the past few decades and how even our very spelling has become a shadow of its once glorious self.
Peter Jackson's 'Bad Taste': A Hilariously Twisted Journey into AbsurdityI have recently been watching ": Breaking Bad " - yes, I am a bit late to the party. Well, this article is not about that superb series ( that will be another piece once I have finished watching it ) but it is about a film I watched back in the late 80's.
It was called " Bad Taste. "
It was a B Grade low-budget movie, made in New Zealand, and had to be one of the most poorly acted, shockingly crazy gory bloodthirsty movies I have ever seen. And my daughters loved it.
Read more: Peter Jackson's 'Bad Taste': A Twisted Journey into Absurdity and Fun
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