Patriot Realm

Over the centuries, we have learned so much about the strength of the human spirit. That incredible ability to triumph over adversity, whether it be physical, emotional or mental agony... or all three at once.

As Easter is uppermost in our thoughts, so too is the concept of war. That conflict that drives us to delve deep and draw upon reserves that we often did not know we had. 

Some time ago I had occasion to watch a movie called " The Ideal Palace. " It was based on the true story of a man in France, Joseph Cheval, (19 April 1836 – 19 August 1924) who built a " palace ' for his daughter, Alice. 

I dedicate this article to the women who fought, died and tragically were lost.

Alongside the brave men who did the same.

I dedicate it to the women who kept the wheels turning on the farms and in the mines and in the factories and in the family homes.

There is great equality in life and in death. But nowhere as great as in the love we feel in our hearts.

I was brought up around boats. My late Dad was a sailor with the Royal Navy and later with the Royal New Zealand Navy. Nothing weird about that except, like many sailors in those days, he couldn't swim.

Still, that was what he did as a young man during the latter years of the Second World War when he decided that he wanted to sail off, see the world, and hopefully be home in time for dinner.

CAN SOCIETY BE designed? Can an expert engineer alleviate people’s pains and struggles with a good-enough central plan and blueprint?

Minoru Yamasaki thought so.

The Pruitt–Igoe urban housing project, a 1950s effort to revitalize 'urban blight' in St. Louis, was a project doomed from the start—and the "one big failure" of Minoru Yamasaki's distinguished architectural career.

The MS is condemning and/or taunting Trump given he chose Waco as the site of his latest rally.  

Waco on the anniversary of the Waco Siege of 1993 between the Branch Dividians and the ATF/FBI.  

Given the span of time, the changing dynamics, and a greater insight into our government, the Waco Siege takes on a different story.   

My father was employed in the Gold Mining industry as a metallurgist, and consequently, I spent my school days as a student in the mining towns of the outback, or at boarding school. In those days there were nuns and priests, many of them Irish, in most outback Australian towns.

I started school with the Sisters of Mercy, and after 75 years I still recall those wonderful selfless women. They lived in a corrugated tin-roofed convent, and taught in an adjacent corrugated tin-roofed school, dressed in their long black habits and veils and white wimples and bibs. In the sweltering heat of summer with no air-conditioning, the heat must have been unbearable.