General Sir John Monash is one of the truly great Australians. He was an Australian military and civilian leader as well as a great contributor to Australian life. His achievements are outstanding. In my opinion, Monash was not just our most outstanding military leader but our most outstanding citizen of all time.
The achievements of John Monash are so extensive and comprehensive that I cannot condense them into a single post, brief enough to retain the reader’s interest. Therefore I have decided to present them in six episodes of which this is the first. The episodes have been divided into specific eras of his life; Pre 1901 (two parts), 1901-1915 and 1916-1918 and Post WW1.
Read more: General Sir John Monash - The Early Years
Some time ago I watched a series on Netflix called " Babylon Berlin." It awoke an interest in the Weimar Republic and the change that occurred in Germany between the First World War and the Second World War when Germany flirted with democracy under the leadership of Hindenburg, the President of Germany from 1925 until 1934.
It was raw, gritty, dark and often troubling. Explicit in its portrayal of the excesses that humanity can so often, like today, embrace or at the very least, tolerate or ignore.
I was struck by the divide between those who had so much and those who had so little. Much like our world today.
From the center of the continental United States to the middle of Australia is 9,241 miles. It’s a little further from London to Sydney—about 10,572 miles. But in economic matters—the laws of economics being both immutable and universal—the distances between the world’s cities and countries are far smaller.
I was recently reminded of this fact while researching the economic history of the Land Down Under. Curious to find out if Australia’s move away from a gold standard bore any similarities to events in the US and the UK, I discovered that the parallels are striking.
Our Governments need to admit that they were wrong. Cut their losses and get us out of the boathouse and set sail once more. We have been at anchor too long.
Set sail on already charted waters and dare to venture out of the so called safe harbour that is politically correct, poll driven mumbo jumbo " I am a rabid wanker and you should all be proud of it. " country.
Can we just start sailing again because I am sick and tired of being stuck in limbo and my sails, quite frankly, are running out of puff.
Read more: Whose Bright Idea Was This? Wankels and Woke Wankers.
By 7.30 am the morning sun had pushed far above a shimmering cloud line. Ignoring that it was final days of a bloody-hot Australian summer it still bit into the weathered necks of some thirty habitual punters who were already milling outside a locked security gate on the Eastern periphery of Sydney’s vast domestic airport.
Meanwhile, some 650 Kms. to the North West, in the NSW city of Armidale, officials were preparing for the 148th running of the Armidale Cup; a horse race that draws punters and good-time blokes from around the nation.
Through the chain-link fence and beyond the ragged grass awaited our chartered DC3.
Read more: Flying High to a Day at the Races - Harking back to the Accidental Punter
A long time ago the universe was made of ice. Then one day the ice began to melt, and a mist rose into the sky.. Out of the mist came a giant made of frost and the earth and heavens were made from his body. That is how the world began, and that is how the world will end. Not by fire but by Ice. An Ancient Scandinavian Legend, quoted by Robert W Felix in his great book:“NOT BY FIRE BUT BY ICE”.
Earth is living in the latter days of the Holocene Warm Era. This is the latest short, fertile, warm interlude within the long, barren, Pleistocene Ice Age.
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.
When good women get involved with good men, all manner of amazing things can happen. In a partnership of equals, the possibility of one plus one equalling three or even four is not only possible, but it is also extremely likely. While standing alone, one person can only ever achieve the potential output of one. But, when coupled with someone of equal potential, the numbers can change dramatically.
It is time to gather our resources and focus on the job at hand: to get back to OUR world where we worked together in unity and harnessed our strengths and pulled together as a team.
History has shown us that many powerful men partnered with powerful women. Their power may have come from different directions, but they were. as it is said so sagely " Sympatico." They worked in harmony to each other's benefit.
Bruce Ruxton is one of my heroes. I never met the man and these notes are drawn from personal recollection of some of his better known controversial escapades with a bit of research added in.
He passed on 23rd of December 2011.
He was born too late to be able to become a hero in the traditional sense. He joined the Army in 1944 and was assigned to the Survey Corps of the Royal Australian Engineers, a natural progression from his civilian occupation. Towards the end of the war, he was transferred as a rifleman during the Borneo campaign.
As migrants and " refugees " storm our countries and demand, yes demand, that we hand over our culture and way of life to them, I find myself wondering where it will all end.
Where their so-called "need " is greater than our right. Possession is 9/10th of the law they say. Yet, why is it that I feel that their " want ' has superseded our " right' ?
And it all comes down to feeling like a backseat driver in our own car. We are no longer at the wheel and we are being chauffeured around and no longer sitting in the driver's seat of our own lives.
Read more: The Crazy Times We Live In When a Helping Hand Becomes a Handout....
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