Sunday, April 25, 2021

ANZAC DAY

 April 25, 2021


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They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

- Laurence Binyon
For the Fallen
1914


LEST WE FORGET

ANZAC DAY 2021: "WE"RE ALL AUSTRALIANS NOW"

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Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (1864 – 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author who is today best remembered for his ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas. Paterson's more notable poems include "Clancy of the Overflow" (1889), "The Man from Snowy River" (1890) and "Waltzing Matilda" (1895), regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem.

A solicitor, he adopted the name “Banjo”, after his favourite hors, for his published writings.

In 1899 he was sent to South Africa as a war correspondent to cover the Boer War for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age. He left with the first Australian contingents and reported many of the early battles. In 1901 he went to China as correspondent for his Sydney newspaper to report on the Boxer Rebellion.

On the outbreak of World War 1 he became an ambulance driver with the Australian Voluntary Hospital in France. He returned to Australia early in 1915 and travelled on three voyages with horses to Africa, China and Egypt. He was commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial Force in 1915, serving initially in France where he was wounded and reported missing in July 1916 and latterly as commanding officer of the unit based in Cairo, Egypt. He was repatriated to Australia and discharged from the army having risen to the rank of major in April 1919. His wife had joined the Red Cross and worked in an ambulance unit near her husband.

Captain Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson, from a group portrait
photograph of the Australian Light Horse officers, c.1916,

The group photograph from which the above enlargement is taken, Paterson being third from the left, next to the foliage

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It has sometimes been said that Australia came of age at Gallipoli.

The adoption of the Australian Constitution in 1901 and the coming together of the Sates as the Commonwealth of Australia meant that Australia was now a nation. Although Federation created the nation, it was Gallipoli that built national pride and confidence, as well as marking a turning point in the relationship with Britain.

Sir William Deane, the former Governor-General, said in 1997 on the death of Ted Matthews, the last of the Anzacs to have landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915:

"Anzac is . . . about courage, and endurance, and duty, and mateship, and good humour, and the survival of a sense of self-worth: the sum of those human and national values which our pioneers found in the raw bush of a new world and tested in the old world for the first time at Gallipoli.

It is about the spirit, the depth, the meaning, the very essence of our nation. And it is about sadness and grief for young lives cut short and dreams left unfulfilled. And horror at the carnage of war."

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Banjo Paterson’s poem “We’re All Australians Now” was written in 1915 as an open letter to the Australian troops fighting at Gallipoli. Although Federation had created a nation, the sense of national identity and unity as Australians was forged at Gallipoli, the men fighting under Australian flag.

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Hear Peter Cosgrove, former Governor-General (2014-2019), recite the poem by clicking on:

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We're All Australians Now

- An open letter to the troops, 1915

       - Banjo Paterson

Australia takes her pen in hand
To write a line to you,
To let you fellows understand
How proud we are of you.

From shearing shed and cattle run,
From Broome to Hobson's Bay,
Each native-born Australian son
Stands straighter up today.

The man who used to "hump his drum",
On far-out Queensland runs
Is fighting side by side with some
Tasmanian farmer's sons.

The fisher-boys dropped sail and oar
To grimly stand the test,
Along that storm-swept Turkish shore,
With miners from the west.

The old state jealousies of yore
Are dead as Pharaoh's sow,
We're not State children any more --
We're all Australians now!

Our six-starred flag that used to fly
Half-shyly to the breeze,
Unknown where older nations ply
Their trade on foreign seas,

Flies out to meet the morning blue
With Vict'ry at the prow;
For that's the flag the Sydney flew,
The wide seas know it now!

The mettle that a race can show
Is proved with shot and steel,
And now we know what nations know
And feel what nations feel.

The honoured graves beneath the crest
Of Gaba Tepe hill
May hold our bravest and our best,
But we have brave men still.

With all our petty quarrels done,
Dissensions overthrown,
We have, through what you boys have done,
A history of our own.

Our old world diff'rences are dead,
Like weeds beneath the plough,
For English, Scotch, and Irish-bred,
They're all Australians now!

So now we'll toast the Third Brigade
That led Australia's van,
For never shall their glory fade
In minds Australian.

Fight on, fight on, unflinchingly,
Till right and justice reign.
Fight on, fight on, till Victory
Shall send you home again.

And with Australia's flag shall fly
A spray of wattle-bough
To symbolise our unity --
We're all Australians now.

Saturday, April 24, 2021

QUOTE FOR THE DAY


"Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet."


– Ernest Bramah Ernest Bramah 

(1868 – 1942)

English author.




WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE



Continuing a brief look at the events and persons listed in Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.

Each two lines represent a year.

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

1956:
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

Alabama:

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, African American Rosa Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a white passenger, once the "white" section was filled.

Parks wasn't the first person to resist bus segregation, but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws.  She helped inspire the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year.

The case became bogged down in the state courts, but the federal Montgomery bus lawsuit Browder v. Gayle resulted in a November 1956 decision that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation, and organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr.. At the time, Parks was employed as a seamstress at a local department store and was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.

Although widely honored in later years, she also suffered for her act; she was fired from her job, and received death threats for years afterwards.

Shortly after the boycott, she moved to Detroit, where she briefly found similar work.

From 1965 to 1988, she served as secretary and receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American US Representative. She was also active in the Black Power movement and the support of political prisoners in the US.

After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and continued to insist that there was more work to be done in the struggle for justice.

Parks received national recognition, including the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall.

Upon her death in 2005, she was the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. California and Missouri commemorate Rosa Parks Day on her birthday, February 4, while Ohio and Oregon commemorate the anniversary of her arrest, December 1.

The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".

Relevance to 1956:

See above, the decision that bus segregation was unconstitutional was delivered in November 1956.

Gallery:


Rosa Parks, 1955, with Dr. Martin Luther King jr in background


Booking photo of Parks following her February 1956 arrest during the Montgomery bus boycott


Police report on Rosa Parks, December 1, 1955, page 1


Parks being fingerprinted by Lieutenant D.H. Lackey on February 22, 1956, when she was arrested again, along with 73 other people, after a grand jury indicted 113 African Americans for organizing the Montgomery bus boycott


Photograph of an empty bus during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.


Rosa Parks c. 1978


Rosa Parks in 1993


The casket of Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol rotunda


Rosa Parks statue by Eugene Daub (2013), in National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol


Parks and U.S. President Bill Clinton


The bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat is a symbol of her defiance that changed the course of history in America. That bus was once in ruins, but now it sits at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. The bus Parks made history in was put out of service in Montgomery in 1971. Eventually, it was put up for auction and the Henry Ford Museum was the highest bidder.


U.S. President Barack Obama sitting on the bus. Parks was arrested sitting in the same row Obama is in, but on the opposite side.

By the way:
  • Nine months before Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery for the same act. The city's Black leaders prepared to protest, until it was discovered Colvin was pregnant and deemed an inappropriate symbol for their cause.
  • African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership. To ensure the boycott could be sustained, Black leaders organized carpools, and the city’s African American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents—the same price as bus fare—for African American riders. Many Black residents chose simply to walk to work or other destinations. Black leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep African American residents mobilized around the boycott.
  • Montgomery’s buses were integrated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott ended. It had lasted 381 days.
  • Integration, however, met with significant resistance and even violence. While the buses themselves were integrated, Montgomery maintained segregated bus stops. Snipers began firing into buses, and one shooter shattered both legs of a pregnant African American passenger.
  • In January 1957, four Black churches and the homes of prominent Black leaders were bombed; a bomb at King’s house was defused. On January 30, 1957, the Montgomery police arrested seven bombers; all were members of the Ku Klux Klan. The arrests largely brought an end to the busing-related violence.
  • The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant on several fronts. 
First, it is widely regarded as the earliest mass protest on behalf of civil rights in the United States, setting the stage for additional large-scale actions outside the court system to bring about fair treatment for African Americans.

Second, in his leadership of the MIA, Martin Luther King emerged as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance. King’s approach remained a hallmark of the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s. Shortly after the boycott’s end, he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a highly influential civil rights organization that worked to end segregation throughout the South. The SCLC was instrumental in the civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, and the March on Washington in August of that same year, during which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

The boycott also brought national and international attention to the civil rights struggles occurring in the United States, as more than 100 reporters visited Montgomery during the boycott to profile the effort and its leaders.

Some examples of what was being challenged:












Rosa Park's refusal to give up her seat happened only 65 years ago.




Friday, April 23, 2021

QUOTE FOR THE DAY


Film producer Sam Zimbalist asking Graham Greene if he would revise the last part of the screenplay for a remake of 'Ben Hur':

“You see, we find a kind of anticlimax after the Crucifixion.”


FUNNY FRIDAY


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Last week short jokes, this week, long ones, with a short one as an entrée.

As usual, a risqué content warning.

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A guy goes to the doctor and after a checkup the doctor discovers that he has three testicles.

The patient asks whether that is a problem, but the doctor assures him that it's not and that he'd wish he had three testicles.

Kind of proud the patient leaves the doctor's office and sits on a park bench next to a stranger.

He says to him: "Together we have five testicles.", to which the other replies: "Why? Do you have none?"
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The Devil sat at the gates of Hell...

An old man suddenly arrived in a burst of flames, looking confused and lost. The Devil looked at his paperwork, and frowned. He was unable to find this old man’s data file.

“This can’t be right,” the old man grumbled, looking at the Devil, “I’ve been a good man my whole life.”

The Devil nodded apologetically, most people said this when they arrived at Hell. “Why don’t you start with how you died and we’ll figure it out,” he said.

The old man sighed and said:

“Well, I was minding my grandchildren, enjoying a fun day out. I don’t get the grandchildren often because my eyesight is starting to fade. But we were having the most wonderful time..

And that’s when everything went crazy!

Out of nowhere, I spotted the largest most grotesque mouse I’ve ever seen moving towards us. It was absolutely enormous!

And that’s when it moved. Straight towards the grandchildren first, limbs outstretched. You don’t know where mice have been, what if it had bitten one of them? Can you imagine if they got rabies on my watch?”

“So what did you do?” the Devil whispered, entranced by the story. He was munching on a box of popcorn.

The old man continued, “You don’t get how big this mouse was! Radiation it must’ve been. Too many phones these days, that’s what causes it.

I did the only thing I could!

I grabbed my walking stick and I cracked it over the head. Now my eye0ight isn’t that good anymore, but I whacked it good!

The kids started screaming at this point. You know how they get when you have to kill an animal.

But I needed to keep going. You see with mice, you need to see their guts to know they’re dead. Otherwise they’ll be back with others.”

“So you killed it?” The Devil asked. Some of his demigods had come to listen to the story.

The old man nodded.

“By golly I did! Guts and all were splattered for all to see. The kids had lost their mind at this point. Tears everywhere. A crowd had gathered as well, all screaming at the sight.

It was at this point though, that the exertion caught up with me. I felt my heart give way. I must have suffered a heart attack. Next thing I know, I’m here.”

“Well,” the Devil said, concerned, “This doesn’t seem to add up. Let me just give Heaven a call and we’ll try and see what’s going on here.”

The Devil pulled up a phone from thin air and dialled a number.

“Hey Jesus bro,” the Devil said, “I think I’ve got one of yours here. His story checks out. Must have been a mix up.”

The Devil nodded as a voice on the phone spoke back to him. He gave the old man a silent celebratory thumbs up as the voice continued.

The Devil covered the phone speaker with his hand, turned to the old man and said,

“You’re all good, they just want to know where you were when you died.”

The old man nodded,

“Oh that’s easy, I was at Disneyland.”
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A policeman was interrogating 3 guys who were training to become detectives. To test their skills in recognizing a suspect, he shows the first guy a picture for 5 seconds and then hides it. "This is your susp
ect, how would you recognise him?"

The first guy answers, "That's easy, we'll catch him fast because he only has one eye!"

The policeman says, "Well...uh...that's because the picture I showed is his side profile."

Slightly flustered by this ridiculous response, he flashes the picture for 5 seconds at the second guy and asks him, "This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?"

The second guy smiles, flips his hair and says, "Ha! He'd be too easy to catch because he only has one ear!"

The policeman angrily responds, "What's the matter with you two?!!? Of course only one eye and one ear are showing because it's a picture of his side profile! Is that the best answer you can come up with?"

Extremely frustrated at this point, he shows the picture to the third guy and in a very testy voice asks, "This is your suspect, how would you recognise him?

He quickly adds, "Think hard before giving me a stupid answer."

The third guy looks at the picture intently for a moment and says, "The suspect wears contact lenses."

The policeman is surprised and speechless because he really doesn't know himself if the suspect wears contacts or not.

"Well, that's an interesting answer. Wait here for a few minutes while I check his file and I'll get back to you on that."

He leaves the room and goes to his office, checks the suspect's file on his computer and comes back with a beaming smile on his face.

"Wow! I can't believe it. It's TRUE! The suspect does, in fact, wear contact lenses. Good work! How were you able to make such an astute observation?"

"That's easy..." the third guy replied. "He can't wear regular glasses because he only has one eye and one ear."
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When NASA was preparing for the Apollo project, some of the training of the astronauts took place on a Navajo reservation.

One day, a Navajo elder and his son were herding sheep and came across the space crew. The old man, who spoke only Navajo, asked a question that his son translated. "Wht are these guys in the big suits doing?"

A member of the crew said they were practicing for their trip to the moon. The old man got all excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts. Recognizing a promotional opportunity, the NASA folks found a tape recorder.

After the old man recorded his message, they asked his son to translate it. He refused. The NASA PR people brought the tape to the reservation, where the rest of the tribe listened and laughed, but refused to translate the elder's message.

Finally, the NASA crew called in an official government translator. His translation of the old man's message was: "Watch out for these guys; they have come to steal your land."
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In World War I there was trench warfare, and neither the Americans nor the Germans could get the upper hand. They were reaching a stalemate. One day, an American came up with a plan that would win them the war. This private explained his plan to his trench mates, and they figured, "Why not? It's not like we have any better ideas." The next day, an American soldier called out, "Hans!?" A German popped up and shouted back, "Ja?!" Boom, the German was shot dead. The next day the Americans shouted again, "Hans?!" "Ja?!" Shot dead. This process continued over the next couple of days. The Germans were losing large numbers, and were now finally catching on.

The Germans had an emergency meeting. They thought they could come back from the heavy losses using the same tactics as the Americans. Thus, a German asked, "What is a popular American name?" "John!" replied another. The next day, the Germans decided to execute their plan. A German shouted, "John!?" An American called back, "Is that you Hans?!" "Ja!" Boom!

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Sitting together on a train, traveling through the Swiss Alps are a French guy, an English guy, an old Greek lady and a young blonde Swiss girl.

The train goes into a dark tunnel and a few seconds later there is the sound of a loud slap.

When the train emerges from the tunnel, the Frenchman has a bright red hand print on his cheek. No one speaks.

The old lady thinks: The Frenchman must have groped the blonde in the dark, and she slapped his cheek.

The blonde thinks: That Frenchman must have tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled the old lady and she slapped his cheek.

The Frenchman thinks: The Englishman must have groped the blonde in the dark. She tried to slap him but missed and got me instead.

The Englishman thinks: I can't wait for another tunnel, so I can smack that Frenchie again!

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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:

There was an old man
From Peru, whose lim'ricks all
Look'd like haiku. He

Said with a laugh "I
Cut them in half, the pay is
Much better for two."

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LAW SPOT:

(Introducing a new weekly item about lawyers, courts and law . . . )

The lawyer's son wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, so he went to law school and graduated with honours. Then he went home to join his father's firm.

At the end of his first day at work, he rushed into his father's office and said, "Father, father! In one day I broke the Smith case that you've been working on for so long!"

His father yelled, "You idiot! We've been living on the funding of that case for ten years!"

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GALLERY:









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CORN CORNER:

What is first prize in a competition to lose muscle mass?

A trophy.
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Two clown cars crash in the ring at the circus.

Over 50 died.
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A man walks into a bar and orders 5 whiskeys and downs them incredibly quickly.

The barman says "That was quick!"

"You'd drink them quickly too if you had what I had..." replies the man.

"Ohh, what's that?" said the barman sympathetically.

The man answers "No money."
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A newly married Alan goes to the meet Father George

He greets the priest and says, 'Father, I need to talk to you.'

The Priest asks, 'Is it a confession, my son?'

Alan replies, 'No, Father! I need to clarify something.'

The Priest takes Alan to his private chamber and says, 'Tell me, Alan. What is it?'

Alan asks, 'Father, why do the kindest of girls begin their quest to change men after marriage?'

The Priest smiles and replied, 'Alan, my son; as the bride walks down the long aisle, her brain registers 3 stimulii. The altar, the choir and the sound of the hymn being sung. Aisle, Altar, and Hymn. She becomes mesmerized. Aisle, Altar, Hymn. Aisle, Altar, hymn. Aisle, Altar, Hymn. And finally, as she stops beside the groom, she is already saying to herself

I'LL ALTER HIM

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