Patriot Realm

The western world has a very high opinion of itself and its supposed values, and its treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange makes a lie of it all.

Truth. Justice. Freedom. Democracy. We are taught from an early age that these are the sacred values our society upholds with the utmost reverence, and that we are very fortunate to have been born in a part of the world which holds such virtue.

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.

In The First Angry Shot I made reference to the defence installations at the Southern end of Port Philip Bay.

These were started in the19th century when Victoria was a colony of the Crown and in the 1880’s was described as the heaviest defended port in the Southern Hemisphere. In the days of sailing ships Port Philip Heads provided much of its own defence via its natural advantages. It sits at the Eastern end beyond the Shipwreck Coast of which Matthew Flinders said "I have seldom seen a more fearful section of coastline."

Every week, there is a featured article about nostalgia. Things that we remember from our past and, for some inexplicable reason, have stuck with us.

Some are from distant memories of childhoods lived and recollected with great fondness. Others talk about an incident from adulthood. In all cases, they feature an event that has stayed with us as a “ keeper “ in the file cabinet called our memory.

When people approach their end of useful life ( according to the young smart arses that think that they will live forever, or perish due to climate change before their 30^th birthday ) it seems to be that our minds retreat to happier times that our minds chose to save, while deleting so many thousands of days.

Why is that?

Back in the late 1980's, I was a Real Estate Agent. I specialised in properties in my home area and it was an easy sell. All I had to do was walk my buyers down the pathway to my local beach and show them the beach that they could call their own, should they decide to purchase a home in our magnificent little enclave of untouched paradise. It was a gentle ramble through shady melaleuca and, upon arriving a mere 100 or 200 metres later, they would be greeted by a wide and expansive open vista of the ocean that stretched in unspoiled infinity to the far reaches of such places as Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and New Zealand.

At that time, I owned a house across the road from my Mum, Redhead and her husband, my father, who used to write here as Raymond F Peters.

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.