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....
‘We swear by the Southern Cross, to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties’
So said Peter Lalor in 1854 at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat. The Eureka Stockade resulted from resentment.
On 30 November 1854 miners from the Victorian town of Ballarat, disgruntled with the way the colonial government had been administering the goldfields, swore allegiance to the Southern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and built a stockade at the nearby Eureka diggings. By the 3rd of December, 22 diggers and six soldiers were dead.
Read more: Eureka Stockade - a time when Australians had guts and passion
The oxygen thieves of life—your life!
I’m a positive and tolerant person, so I tell myself—although many would argue.
Until that is, I have to deal with any institution, corporation, government department, shop assistant and the vast army of wastrels that yearn to wield power and make what should be simple things impossible.
A railway toilet cleaner, for example, who spies you urgently running for the loo, so they stick a “closed for cleaning” sign just as you get there.
As my reporting to the Big Guy Upstairs draws closer,I thought I would set down more of my old memories.
When I started school at the Norseman Convent in Western Australia in the late nineteen-forties, there were no such things there as pull-the-chain sewerage. There was a wooden lavatory (dunny) situated on a lane at the back of each property, on which the collection truck (night cart) attendant (dunnyman) would change the full pans weekly through a hole in the back of the dunny. We sometimes pushed thorny leaves through the hole onto the bums of kids sitting on the dunny seats during playtime.
Read more: The Rollercoaster of Life - It's Been a Hell of a Ride!"
On December 9, 2019, tragedy struck New Zealand as White Island, an active stratovolcano located in the Bay of Plenty, erupted.
The eruption led to the loss of lives, severe injuries, and left an indelible mark on the nation's history.
White Island, also known as Whakaari in Maori, is an active volcano situated about 48 kilometres off the eastern coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is a popular tourist destination, attracting visitors with its otherworldly landscapes and unique geological features.
Back in December 2019, White Island erupted. My heart reached out to those who were caught up in that very frightening and dangerous situation.
A place that used to be known for tourists taking selfies and the harvesting of sulfur suddenly gained worldwide attention as a scene of horror and terrible suffering.
Tomorrow. we will have an article about that terrible day. But for now, I would like to share my memories of the time my parents, Redhead and my late Dad, went fishing. Off White Island.
It might be a family failing that we always try and see the good in bad situations but that is the way we are. For me, just because a place is now remembered as the home of tragedy, I cannot help but remember when it was a place where my Dad could have ruined a perfectly good fishing trip.
Read more: A Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, a Volcano and a Good Day Out
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