Patriot Realm

I read with dismay and horror that the statue of Sir John Monash was vandalised recently. 

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. Yet I have. 

We will explore the life of this man, John Monash; from his early years that started with the Gold Rush; how he met Ned Kelly the infamous bushranger; how he turned from a boy to a young man and how he turned from the son of migrants to one of our finest Australians. It is truly a tale worth telling and a story that should be taught in every school across our great country that we call Australia.   

Some time ago I watched  "The Man who shot Liberty Valance " - it should be compulsory viewing for everyone in America right now, if not the entire world. What a spectacular tale about the value of a vote and the value of free and fair elections.

I have watched it before, but never before has that message come through so loud and clear as it did in my recent rewatch. .

What was it about? A bad guy and his bully mates trying to terrorise a community into submission. A weak Marshall, afraid to confront the baddies; a newspaper man frightened of the bad guys torching his newspaper office and or killing him;  and townspeople too afraid to confront the menace that is ruining their lives.

I dedicate this article to the women who fought, died and tragically were lost. From Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America... everywhere.

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. And the women who went to war and fought alongside their men. 

There is great equality in life and in death. But nowhere as great as in the love we feel in our hearts. Oh how we must remember these brave women. 

The concept of Mother’s Day as we know it in Australia began in the United States in the days of the Civil War by two ladies who were Peace advocates and suffragettes. They started a campaign to care for wounded soldiers from both sides by creating Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve public health.

They made a Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870 and called on mothers of all nationalities to join together and promote the amicable settlement of international disputes. The movement did not succeed. The lady’s name was Anna Jarvis but she persisted with the idea of setting aside a special day to honour all mothers because a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world".

Carbon-capture-and-underground-storage “(CCUS)” tops the list of silly schemes “to reduce man-made global warming”. The idea is to capture exhaust gases from power stations or cement plants, separate the CO₂ from the other gases, compress it, pump it to the chosen burial site and force it underground into permeable rock formations. Then hope it never escapes.

An Australian mining company who should know better is hoping to appease green critics by proposing to bury the gas of life, CO2, deep in the sedimentary rocks of Australia’s Great Artesian Basin.

Some time ago, I watched a documentary about a man who, by being a spy, changed people's lives and, in turn, changed his own.

It began when he saw an advertisement in his newspaper that sought men between the ages of 80 and 90 to work for a 3 month job. The requirement was that the successful applicant had to be technically savvy and willing to deepen that knowledge. He would also have to live away from home for 3 months. 

A number of older gentlemen applied. One man was selected and his named was Sergio.